Confirmed: coronavirus outbreak at Amy Coney Barrett’s White House Rose Garden announcement event

| 2:18 pm EDT October 2, 2020
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When the White House announced this morning that Donald Trump was already suffering mild coronavirus symptoms, Palmer Report explained that this meant the infection timeline might be different than what was first believed. If Trump is already showing symptoms, it suggests he caught it not a couple days ago, but several days ago. We raised the question of how long Trump has been spreading it around.

One big question was how and when Republican Senator Mike Lee caught the virus. After all, he was prominent (and touchy feely) at the White House Rose Garden event announcing Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination last Saturday. Now it turns out Notre Dame President John Jenkins, who was also at the event, has also tested positive. While it’s not clear who gave it to whom, it’s now clear that there was a coronavirus outbreak at the Rose Garden event six days ago.

This leaves several questions. Did Hope Hicks catch it last Saturday? Did she give it to Mike Lee and John Jenkins? Has Donald Trump had the virus since back then? That was six days ago, and it often takes five to seven days for symptoms to show up. Amy Coney Barrett says she’s tested negative, but keep in mind that it’s commonplace to have coronavirus and test negative until you have symptoms, and then test positive.

In any case, this means that the White House coronavirus outbreak isn’t limited to just the Trump advisers and family members who traveled to the two events this week. The outbreak now involves everyone who attended that Rose Garden ceremony. And again, testing negative doesn’t mean you’re negative, until fourteen days have passed. We’re likely to see a whole lot more positive tests than what we’ve seen thus far.