Rapid Response Tests Did Not Stop Coronavirus From Entering White House

delivering false negatives nine percent of the time. Sarah Toy, health and science reporter at the Wall Street Journal, joins us for more. Thanks for joining us, Sarah, thanks for having me. I wanted to talk about how the president might have gotten coronavirus COVID nineteen. Obviously, we don't know.

It's hard to say, but a lot of people keep pointing to this event a couple of saturdays ago now where he basically um brought out Judge Amy Coney Barrett to like nominate her and say this is going to be our next new Supreme Court justice. A lot of people are saying that was a big, super spreader event, and we don't, like I said, we don't know exactly, but it kind of has all the ingredients of that.

But one of the problems seems to be that the administration was relying on rapid testing to help prevent the spread there at the White House and instead for you know, not doing the other stuff that you should be doing, wearing a mask, social distancing, avoiding these large gatherings, which is exactly what they had that one day. So Sarah tell us a little bit about the testing protocols that the White House was doing, because this might be the

thing that tripped them up. So we know that, um, the White House used the Abbot Laboratories I d now rapid test that day. Once guests got a negative test, they were taken to the Rose Garden where a lot of people weren't wearing masks. So basically they used it as a one time screener. But public health experts I spoke to say that that really isn't how it's meant

to be used. Regardless of the type of test, whether you're talking about this rapid test or a lab based test, any strategy that rely solely on testing is going to have goals in it because no test is perfect. One of the public health experts that you spoke to had a very good analogy. They said they were using it like a metal detector, screening just at the front door, and once you've got to result, boom, you're in. And as you mentioned, that's not really the way it works.

It needs to be in conjunction with all of that other stuff. And these rapid response tests, especially, they can produce some false negatives a higher rate than the lab tests. Yes, you're right. You know, these kinds of test trade feed in for accuracy. Like I said, they're not meant to be one time screeners. And you know, some studies have shown that this Abbot I d NOW test has around sensitivity, which means it can miss about nine of infected cases.

And one of the experts I spoke to, a Shishi Ja at Grand University, made this really good comparison that that was like having a metal detector that missed ten of weapons. And you know, you've never that if you were protecting the president. Have you gotten any response back from Abbott Laboratories as far as their testing product or even with regards to this case that happened at the Rose Garden. So we did reach out to Abbot to

see what they had to say and uh. They basically said, no test to text virus immediately after the person becomes effected. They said, the goal should be to test often if that's not possible, to test if these an exposure Simpsons, and you know, they actually brought up a really good point. Dr jaw actually and and many other healthcare and public health experts have been advocating for something called surveillance testing, where you test the population a few times a week

using these rapid tests. But since they do have a higher rate of false negative, you know, the idea here is that if the test miss is the virus on one day, it'll be more likely to catch it on another day. So it's actually very important in controlling the spread of COVID nineteen. We're not trying to say that rapid tests are bad. When used correctly, they're great. But it's not the only thing that you should be doing.

And I think that's the big point. There was maybe this false sense of security at the White House, maybe some complacency in just using these tests, and that might

have been what tripped them up. You know, we keep going back to this Rose Garden as being this possible super spreader event, only because so many people have come down with positive test results for COVID nineteen that attended this people that were in the president's close circle, and the super spreader events are worrisome because they lead to other infections down the road. Other White House journalists have gotten this. Trump's body man, his campaign manager, the Press

secretary has gotten all of this stuff. Um, you had a very specific example in your article about the Notre Dame President Reverend Jakins and his experience when he arrived at the White House for that event. Can you tell us that story? So, Um, Reverend Jason, when he arrived at the White House that day, he was taken to a room where he was tested using a naval swab. Then he was taken to another room with a few

other people to await results. Everyone in that room was wearing him ask but when his test came back negative, he was taken to the road garden and told he no longer had to wear a mask. You know, on Friday, this school then said he tested positive for the virus. And that's kind of highlights the need for this sort of layered approach when it comes to COVID nineteen prevention. These tests aren't perfect. You really need more than just the test. You need maths, you need social distancing, you

need to not tack people together in one space. But that's not what the White House did on September. They used the test to screen people one time for this event, and you know, multiple public health experts we spoke too, said that was just inappropriate. Sarah Toy, health and science reporter at the Wall Street Journal, thank you very much for joining us. Thank you. I'm Oscar Ramirez and this

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