White House Has Relied on a Rapid Test Kit That Could’ve Failed to Detect Virus in the House

By
Shawn Ambrose
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You know that uncle who refused to wear a mask during the circuit breaker and had meals at the coffee shop even though it wasn’t allowed, and even argued with police officers afterwards when they advised him to stop?

Unfortunately for the US, Trump is that uncle, and he’s president of the country.

A few days ago, the US president announced on Twitter that he and his wife had tested positive for the coronavirus, an announcement that many saw coming.

Why?

Well, the Trump team seems to have come up with a list of the worst things to do during a pandemic, and proceeded to do every one of them.

This includes going against the medical advice of experts, touting unproven drugs, treating lockdowns like a disease worse than Covid-19, and refusing to regularly wear a mask.

But now, more details are emerging about the White House’s troubling response to the outbreak, as well as its inadequate safety measures.

White House Has Relied on a Rapid Test Kit That Could’ve Failed to Detect Virus in the House

When the virus first started spreading in the US, the White House reportedly relied on a rapid test kit that could deliver results in a matter of minutes.

Sounds great, right? The only problem was that it may have reported false negatives. 

Image: Tenor

Back in March, Trump announced that the White House would be using the Abbott Laboratories’ newly-launched ID Now test, a rapid test kit that purportedly detects Covid-19 in around five minutes.

Image: AFP

However, one professor of infectious diseases believes this gave the White House and its staff “a false sense of security that they were in control of the virus”.

What exactly did he mean?

False Negatives

Well, if you’ve been watching Trump press conferences because you need some entertainment in your life, you’d know that he’s refused to wear a mask regularly and treated social distancing like he treats vegetables.

Basically, the White House believed that doing rapid tests frequently were enough to curb the spread of the coronavirus, and failed to implement other safety measures.

There were two problems with this strategy:

  • It’s unclear how well rapid tests perform in people who are asymptomatic
  • There were concerns about “potential inaccurate results” from the rapid test kit

According to the US Food and Drug Administration, there have been 302 “adverse event” reports as of 30 Sept about the ID Now test, including reports of false negatives.

A false negative occurs when a patient who has a virus is shown as being virus-free.

This became a problem not just for Trump and his wife, but for many of his colleagues as well.

Tested At Super-Spreader Event

Before Trump tested positive, he was working on his presidential campaign, as the election is less than a month away.

Now it seems that it may have been at a certain event that Trump contracted and possibly spread the coronavirus to others.

On 26 September 2020, the US president unveiled his nominee for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.

This upset many people, especially democrats. Check out this article if you want to know why.

In any case, this nomination ceremony wasn’t held on Zoom but in an outdoor ceremony at the Rose Garden, which was attended by about 200 people.

Oh, and most of them weren’t wearing masks nor following any safe distancing protocols.

Image: Tenor

Why were they so blase about safety? Well, that’s because they were allegedly all tested before the event took place.

They were so secure in their imperviousness to Covid-19 that they even shook each other’s hands and stood so close to each other it looked like a picture from 2019.

Image: New York Times

The problem was that they likely used the rapid test kit before the event, meaning it may have reported some false negatives.

Also, as the New York Times noted, it can take several days after exposure for the virus to be detected by a test.

Now, at least seven attendees have tested positive for the virus, including two senators (kind of like our MPs).

The seventh, of course, was the president.

This just shows that testing alone isn’t enough to combat the coronavirus. Social distancing, masks, and good hygiene are all necessary as well.

As Trump and his team have proved, there are no cutting corners when it comes to curbing Covid-19.

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Shawn Ambrose
Email: [email protected]