White House Secret Service agents, particularly those working close to US President Donald Trump, have been complaining in private about coronavirus-related health risks they have been exposed to in ]recent months, the Washington Post revealed citing anonymous claims reportedly made in discussion groups and on message boards.
According to the report, security staffers assigned to work for the President in the field - including the campaign rallies – have not been tested for SARS-CoV-2 since late August, despite working at highly populated, non-socially distanced and mostly maskless events.
“He’s never cared about us,” one agent reportedly lamented.
Another present member of the security detail was quoted as saying: “This administration doesn’t care about the Secret Service. It’s so obvious.”
President Trump revealed on Friday that he and First Lady Melania Trump had contracted coronavirus and have experienced mild symptoms. Several people from his close circle and those who attended Saturday 26 September's announcement of Amy Coney Barret as Supreme Court nominee have tested positive for the virus, including former White House adviser Kellyanne Conway, Republican Senators Mike Lee for Utah and Thom Tillis for North Carolina, and University of Notre Dame President John Jenkins.
The President, who has publicly ditched some coronavirus-related protective measures in the past, is staying at the Walter Reed Military Medical Center as a precautionary measure, where he is taking the antiviral COVID-19 drug remdesivir, as well as vitamin D, zinc, famotidine, melatonin and aspirin. According to Trump’s physician Sean P. Conley, he has also been given an 8-gram dose of Regeneron's polyclonal “antibody cocktail”.
Bob Woodward's newly released book featuring interviews with the President revealed that Donald Trump admitted to the veteran Washington Post journalist in March that he deliberately wanted to downplay the severity of COVID-19 disease to avoid public panic.