Drama has hit D.C.
Headlines blaze..
Katie Miller tests positive–the wife of Trump advisor Stephen Miller..
MORE..
Katie Miller, a spokesperson for Vice President Mike Pence, has tested positive for coronavirus, according to two people with knowledge of Miller’s diagnosis.
Miller’s positive diagnosis for Covid-19 puts the potential threat of the infection squarely into the president’s inner circle. Miller serves as the vice president’s top spokesperson, traveling with him frequently and attending meetings by his side. She is also married to another top White House aide and senior adviser, Stephen Miller, who writes the majority of Trump’s speeches and spends copious amounts of time around the president, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.
Miller’s positive test prompted the vice president to delay his takeoff for a trip to Iowa. Six staffers who may have had contact with her deplaned, and all six later tested negative for the virus.
Meanwhile.. President Trump now he will tested daily instead of weekly as one of his personal valets tested positive for the virus..
Additional fears are rising from numbers coming from the Secret Service..
Multiple members of the U.S. Secret Service have tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, according to Department of Homeland Security documents..
According to the DHS document:
Along with the 11 active cases there are 23 members of the Secret Service who have recovered from COVID-19 and an additional 60 employees who are self-quarantining.
No details have been provided to media about which members of the Secret Service are infected or if any have recently been on detail with the president or vice president…
Meanwhile, new White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany was asked about this today at a briefing.. her response included an answer that the White House is doing everything it can to stay safe, including contact tracing and all recommended guidelines..
.@PressSec Kayleigh McEnany: “As America reopens safely, the White House is continuing to operate safely.” pic.twitter.com/XuzA1eFJg8
— The Hill (@thehill) May 9, 2020
But hours after McEnany stated that the safety standards were being put in place, another breaking news event shook the nation’s capitol..
An assistant, unnamed, of Ivanka Trump has tested positive for coronavirus. The assistant was not symptomatic and has not been around Trump in several weeks as she’s been teleworking. Trump and her husband Jared Kushner both tested negative for COVID-19.
Trump further said,
“I’m not worried. But you know, look, I get things done. I don’t worry about things. I do what I have to do,” he said. “We’ve taken very strong precautions at the White House. But again, we’re dealing with an invisible situation. Nobody knows.”
“All you can do is take precaution and do it the best you can,” he added.
THE 1918 PANDEMIC HIT THE WHITE HOUSE, TOO
In January 1919, The Washington Post reported that two of the White House sheep, known for grazing on the White House Grounds and raising money for the war effort, were “in an animal hospital and…said to have influenza symptoms.”
Fortunately, they made a speedy recovery under the care of the Department of Agriculture and returned to the lawn in less than two months.
President Wilson could not avoid the contagious disease, and became ill with the flu in the middle of the peace talks.
In April 1919, Rear Admiral Cary T. Grayson, personal physician to the president, wrote to a friend, explaining that: “These past two weeks have certainly been strenuous days for me. The President was suddenly taken violently sick with the influenza at a time when the whole of civilization seemed to be in the balance.”
The extent of President Wilson’s illness was not revealed to the American people, however. Instead, Grayson informed the press that it was merely a cold caused by the “chilly and rainy weather” in Paris to maintain confidence in Wilson.
But in reality, the flu confined Wilson to his bed, where he was barely able to talk or stand upright. The press reported his condition back to concerned American audiences daily. One columnist for The Washington Post wrote:
The country will be anxious regarding President Wilson until he is again at work…It is a time when an hour lost means the loss of millions of hours to these individuals who are awaiting to begin reconstruction…the allied world hopes for the sake of its material interests that his illness will be light and brief.
Eventually Wilson recovered and survived, and returned to negotiations..
But a future occupant of the White House also was struck:
Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin Roosevelt. In September 1918, The Washington Times reported that Roosevelt fell ill with Spanish influenza during a voyage to France.
Aboard the U.S.S Leviathan, close to one-sixth of the men onboard became infected, claiming almost two thousand victims.
Severely weakened, Roosevelt was carried off the ship on a stretcher after docking in America and transported via ambulance to his mother’s home in New York, where he made a full recovery.21
