Speaker 1: It's Wednesday, October seven. I'm Oscar Ramirez from the Daily
Speaker 1: Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is reopening America.
Speaker 1: How did the coronavirus infiltrate the White House? Many experts
Speaker 1: say that the reliance on coronavirus rapid response test without
Speaker 1: other mitigation strategies like wearing masks and social distancing might
Speaker 1: have been the problem. The White House was using Abbott
Speaker 1: laboratories I D now test like metal detectors, despite them
Speaker 1: delivering false negatives nine percent of the time. Sarah Toy,
Speaker 1: health and science reporter at the Wall Street Journal, joins
Speaker 1: us for more. Thanks for joining us, Sarah, thanks for
Speaker 1: having me. I wanted to talk about how the president
Speaker 1: might have gotten coronavirus COVID nineteen. Obviously, we don't know.
Speaker 1: It's hard to say, but a lot of people keep
Speaker 1: pointing to this event a couple of saturdays ago now
Speaker 1: where he basically um brought out Judge Amy Coney Barrett
Speaker 1: to like nominate her and say this is going to
Speaker 1: be our next new Supreme Court justice. A lot of
Speaker 1: people are saying that was a big, super spreader event,
Speaker 1: and we don't, like I said, we don't know exactly,
Speaker 1: but it kind of has all the ingredients of that.
Speaker 1: But one of the problems seems to be that the
Speaker 1: administration was relying on rapid testing to help prevent the
Speaker 1: spread there at the White House and instead for you know,
Speaker 1: not doing the other stuff that you should be doing,
Speaker 1: wearing a mask, social distancing, avoiding these large gatherings, which
Speaker 1: is exactly what they had that one day. So Sarah
Speaker 1: tell us a little bit about the testing protocols that
Speaker 1: the White House was doing, because this might be the
Speaker 1: thing that tripped them up. So we know that, um,
Speaker 1: the White House used the Abbot Laboratories I d now
Speaker 1: rapid test that day. Once guests got a negative test,
Speaker 1: they were taken to the Rose Garden where a lot
Speaker 1: of people weren't wearing masks. So basically they used it
Speaker 1: as a one time screener. But public health experts I
Speaker 1: spoke to say that that really isn't how it's meant
Speaker 1: to be used. Regardless of the type of test, whether
Speaker 1: you're talking about this rapid test or a lab based test,
Speaker 1: any strategy that rely solely on testing is going to
Speaker 1: have goals in it because no test is perfect. One
Speaker 1: of the public health experts that you spoke to had
Speaker 1: a very good analogy. They said they were using it
Speaker 1: like a metal detector, screening just at the front door,
Speaker 1: and once you've got to result, boom, you're in. And
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, that's not really the way it works.
Speaker 1: It needs to be in conjunction with all of that
Speaker 1: other stuff. And these rapid response tests, especially, they can
Speaker 1: produce some false negatives a higher rate than the lab tests. Yes,
Speaker 1: you're right. You know, these kinds of test trade feed
Speaker 1: in for accuracy. Like I said, they're not meant to
Speaker 1: be one time screeners. And you know, some studies have
Speaker 1: shown that this Abbot I d NOW test has around sensitivity,
Speaker 1: which means it can miss about nine of infected cases.
Speaker 1: And one of the experts I spoke to, a Shishi
Speaker 1: Ja at Grand University, made this really good comparison that
Speaker 1: that was like having a metal detector that missed ten
Speaker 1: of weapons. And you know, you've never that if you
Speaker 1: were protecting the president. Have you gotten any response back
Speaker 1: from Abbott Laboratories as far as their testing product or
Speaker 1: even with regards to this case that happened at the
Speaker 1: Rose Garden. So we did reach out to Abbot to
Speaker 1: see what they had to say and uh. They basically said,
Speaker 1: no test to text virus immediately after the person becomes effected.
Speaker 1: They said, the goal should be to test often if
Speaker 1: that's not possible, to test if these an exposure Simpsons,
Speaker 1: and you know, they actually brought up a really good point.
Speaker 1: Dr jaw actually and and many other healthcare and public
Speaker 1: health experts have been advocating for something called surveillance testing,
Speaker 1: where you test the population a few times a week
Speaker 1: using these rapid tests. But since they do have a
Speaker 1: higher rate of false negative, you know, the idea here
Speaker 1: is that if the test miss is the virus on
Speaker 1: one day, it'll be more likely to catch it on
Speaker 1: another day. So it's actually very important in controlling the
Speaker 1: spread of COVID nineteen. We're not trying to say that
Speaker 1: rapid tests are bad. When used correctly, they're great. But
Speaker 1: it's not the only thing that you should be doing.
Speaker 1: And I think that's the big point. There was maybe
Speaker 1: this false sense of security at the White House, maybe
Speaker 1: some complacency in just using these tests, and that might
Speaker 1: have been what tripped them up. You know, we keep
Speaker 1: going back to this Rose Garden as being this possible
Speaker 1: super spreader event, only because so many people have come
Speaker 1: down with positive test results for COVID nineteen that attended
Speaker 1: this people that were in the president's close circle, and
Speaker 1: the super spreader events are worrisome because they lead to
Speaker 1: other infections down the road. Other White House journalists have
Speaker 1: gotten this. Trump's body man, his campaign manager, the Press
Speaker 1: secretary has gotten all of this stuff. Um, you had
Speaker 1: a very specific example in your article about the Notre
Speaker 1: Dame President Reverend Jakins and his experience when he arrived
Speaker 1: at the White House for that event. Can you tell
Speaker 1: us that story? So, Um, Reverend Jason, when he arrived
Speaker 1: at the White House that day, he was taken to
Speaker 1: a room where he was tested using a naval swab.
Speaker 1: Then he was taken to another room with a few
Speaker 1: other people to await results. Everyone in that room was
Speaker 1: wearing him ask but when his test came back negative,
Speaker 1: he was taken to the road garden and told he
Speaker 1: no longer had to wear a mask. You know, on Friday,
Speaker 1: this school then said he tested positive for the virus.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of highlights the need for this sort
Speaker 1: of layered approach when it comes to COVID nineteen prevention.
Speaker 1: These tests aren't perfect. You really need more than just
Speaker 1: the test. You need maths, you need social distancing, you
Speaker 1: need to not tack people together in one space. But
Speaker 1: that's not what the White House did on September. They
Speaker 1: used the test to screen people one time for this event,
Speaker 1: and you know, multiple public health experts we spoke too,
Speaker 1: said that was just inappropriate. Sarah Toy, health and science
Speaker 1: reporter at the Wall Street Journal, thank you very much
Speaker 1: for joining us. Thank you. I'm Oscar Ramirez and this
Speaker 1: has been reopening America. Don't forget that. For today's big
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