President Trump’s national security adviser, Robert C. O’Brien, has tested positive for the coronavirus, the administration said on Monday.
Mr. O’Brien, 54, “has mild symptoms†and is working remotely from “a secure location off site,†the administration said in a statement.
“There is no risk of exposure to the president or the vice president,†it said. “The work of the National Security Council continues uninterrupted.â€
Mr. O’Brien is the most senior White House official known to have contracted the virus. He typically works from a West Wing office steps away from the Oval Office and, under normal circumstances, may see the president several times a day.
It is unclear when he was last in physical contact with Mr. Trump, although he joined the president on a July 10 trip to Florida.
Speaking to reporters before departing the White House on Monday afternoon, Mr. Trump said he had heard about Mr. O’Brien but did not know when he had tested positive. “I haven’t seen him lately,†the president added.
Mr. O’Brien also traveled to Paris in mid-July, where he met with several European security officials, visited an American war cemetery and attended a Bastille Day celebration. It was unclear whether he had become infected before or after that trip. The White House statement did not provide further details.
A photograph of Mr. O’Brien in Paris with his counterparts from Britain, France, Germany and Italy shows the men standing nearly shoulder to shoulder without masks, and Mr. O’Brien and others are not wearing masks in images of his ceremonial stops released by the White House.
Speaking to reporters at the White House on Monday, Larry Kudlow, Mr. Trump’s top economic adviser, said that Mr. O’Brien believed he had contracted the virus from his daughter. “Apparently it’s a light case,†Mr. Kudlow said.
Senior White House aides are tested regularly for the virus, as is Mr. Trump.
The development comes as Mr. Trump has begun to more frankly acknowledge the severity of the virus’s spread throughout the American South and West.
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Updated July 27, 2020
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- It could be a good idea, because mortgage rates have never been lower. Refinancing requests have pushed mortgage applications to some of the highest levels since 2008, so be prepared to get in line. But defaults are also up, so if you’re thinking about buying a home, be aware that some lenders have tightened their standards.
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- It is unlikely that many schools will return to a normal schedule this fall, requiring the grind of online learning, makeshift child care and stunted workdays to continue. California’s two largest public school districts — Los Angeles and San Diego — said on July 13, that instruction will be remote-only in the fall, citing concerns that surging coronavirus infections in their areas pose too dire a risk for students and teachers. Together, the two districts enroll some 825,000 students. They are the largest in the country so far to abandon plans for even a partial physical return to classrooms when they reopen in August. For other districts, the solution won’t be an all-or-nothing approach. Many systems, including the nation’s largest, New York City, are devising hybrid plans that involve spending some days in classrooms and other days online. There’s no national policy on this yet, so check with your municipal school system regularly to see what is happening in your community.
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Is the coronavirus airborne?
- The coronavirus can stay aloft for hours in tiny droplets in stagnant air, infecting people as they inhale, mounting scientific evidence suggests. This risk is highest in crowded indoor spaces with poor ventilation, and may help explain super-spreading events reported in meatpacking plants, churches and restaurants. It’s unclear how often the virus is spread via these tiny droplets, or aerosols, compared with larger droplets that are expelled when a sick person coughs or sneezes, or transmitted through contact with contaminated surfaces, said Linsey Marr, an aerosol expert at Virginia Tech. Aerosols are released even when a person without symptoms exhales, talks or sings, according to Dr. Marr and more than 200 other experts, who have outlined the evidence in an open letter to the World Health Organization.
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What are the symptoms of coronavirus?
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Does asymptomatic transmission of Covid-19 happen?
- So far, the evidence seems to show it does. A widely cited paper published in April suggests that people are most infectious about two days before the onset of coronavirus symptoms and estimated that 44 percent of new infections were a result of transmission from people who were not yet showing symptoms. Recently, a top expert at the World Health Organization stated that transmission of the coronavirus by people who did not have symptoms was “very rare,†but she later walked back that statement.
Mr. O’Brien assumed his job in September, succeeding John R. Bolton, who resigned after mounting conflicts with the president over foreign policy.
He is the latest of several White House staff members and others in the president’s orbit who have tested positive for the coronavirus. They include a military officer who works as a presidential valet at the White House, as well as Vice President Mike Pence’s press secretary, Katie Miller, both of whom tested positive in early May. Last week, the White House closed two cafeterias in its extended complex after an employee tested positive.
Mr. Pence postponed a planned trip to Arizona this month after members of his Secret Service detail tested positive or showed symptoms of the virus. Kimberly Guilfoyle, a former Fox News commentator who is dating Donald Trump Jr., also contracted the virus, as did several Trump campaign advance staffers who helped to arrange his June rally in Tulsa, Okla.
Mr. O’Brien’s deputy on the National Security Council, Matthew Pottinger, was among the first White House officials to wear a mask. He accompanied Mr. O’Brien on his trip to Paris this month.
The news of Mr. O’Brien’s infection resonated quickly across the world.
Hu Xijin, the editor of the nationalist Beijing newspaper Global Times, tweeted that the news about Mr. O’Brien, a leading China hawk in the administration, “shows the pandemic has been completely out of control in the US. No American is absolutely safe.â€
“Novel coronavirus is truly US’ top enemy now,†he added.
