Hope Hicks has COVID-19

Donald Trump has been exposed to SARS-CoV-2, potentially over the course of several days, including the day of the debate with Joe Biden.

Hope Hicks isn't just a random adviser. She's in the top 10 inner circle around the President. The West Wing has not maintained protocols like most every major employer and public institution. Mask wearing has been inconsistent. Quarters are tight in the West Wing, not to mention Air Force One and on Marine One. This is a recipe for a superspreader situation. 

Hicks is now actively sick and symptomatic. Apparently she tested negative before going to Minnesota Wednesday morning, but that was likely the Abbott test that has a ~30% false negative rate (and that Trump has personally promoted in ways that raised suspicion about a conflict of interest.) Trump's comments to Sean Hannity suggest that she picked it up from a member of the military. I don't know when that might have been. She became symptomatic by Wednesday night, and tested positive on Thursday morning.

The President has access to the Abbott test and the genetic test involving nasal swabs that can take days (if you are a random civilian) or hours (if you are POTUS).

As of this moment, approaching midnight EDT, the President has announced that he is quarantining "while awaiting test results", while his staff put out a normal press schedule for tomorrow. He went to fundraiser in NJ today, which may have been a reckless act, given that Hicks was already sidelined. 

Let's be clear: if the President does not announce a pair or more of sequential negative DNA tests in the next 48-96 hours, he probably has the virus. I hope he sets a good example with a proper quarantine - along with everyone he has traveled with recently, although with his testing capacity, I don't think 14 days will be necessary or realistic. 

But he's likely confined to the White House for a week -- at best -- which will prove his incompetence in handling the pandemic in a way nothing else could. POTUS is the world's most protected human being, but he insisted that his staff act casually about the pandemic because of the political optics.

I suppose Trump could keep campaigning even if his situation is ambiguous. That seems very, very risky from a health standpoint and a political standpoint. He could try to ride out a mild sickness by citing quarantine -- but secrets that big are basically impossible to keep in Washington. 

There's a non-trivial chance that Donald Trump is infected and will become sick in the coming days. There's also a non-trivial chance that his recklessness with the virus will cost government workers and Presidential advisers their health or their lives. Maybe the sickness is isolated to Hicks and this will blow over. Maybe Trump will survive Covid-19, like several other national leaders including Boris Johnson of the UK, who was in intensive care and is back on the job now.

But it's hard to imagine a world where this doesn't hurt his campaign. 

And at his age, an infection is a mortal threat.

2020 can't get more surreal. Stay tuned.