华盛顿——这是一个基本的、至关重要的问题，也是白宫拒绝回答的问题:总统是什么时候唐纳德·特朗普他上周检测呈阳性之前最后一次冠状病毒检测呈阴性?
“是的，我不会在每次总统测试时都给你一个带有时间戳的详细读数，”白宫新闻秘书凯莉·麦克纳尼上周末告诉记者。
“我现在不能透露，”白宫战略传播主任阿里萨·法拉附和道。“医生希望保密。”
“我不想倒退，”总统的医生肖恩·康利博士说。
答案可能有助于填补关于总统病程的重要细节，以及他何时可能具有传染性，以及他可能接触了谁。鉴于他们已经分享的其他细节，白宫拒绝回答让人们很难不怀疑他们在隐瞒什么。
哈佛大学公共学院的内科医生兼流行病学教授迈克尔·约瑟夫·米娜说:“在这一点上，他们不愿意给我们提供信息真是太奇怪了。”健康。“这让人们开始思考‘总统是超级传播者吗?’...如果没有邪恶的活动发生，那么他们回答这个问题应该没有问题。"
这些信息也是追踪其他可能接触过病毒的人的关键，这样就可以追踪他们的接触者，以防止新的感染群。
斯坦福医疗保健临床病毒学实验室的医学主任本杰明·平斯基(Benjamin Pinsky)说:“这样你就可以潜在地了解他何时感染的，他的潜伏期有多长，然后评估在这段时间内谁可能接触过他。”他说，虽然病例之间存在相当大的差异，但特朗普最有可能在检测呈阳性的前几天感染——在此期间，他旅行并与数十人密切接触。
白宫高级职员和那些与总统直接接触的人每天都要接受病毒检测。白宫最初给人的印象是，特朗普也每天都受到考验，麦克纳尼在7月份声称特朗普是“美国最受考验的人”，并“每天接受多次考验”。但特朗普反驳她说，“我可能平均每两天、三天做一次测试。”
目前白宫的说法是特朗普“定期”接受测试
众所周知:9月30日星期三，在去明尼苏达州参加一个资金筹集和集会的旅行中，总统最亲密的助手之一霍普·希克斯开始感到不舒服。在回家的路上，她在空军一号上孤立了自己，但白宫似乎没有采取进一步的行动。
第二天早上，希克斯再次接受了病毒测试。这一次，结果是积极的，就在总统准备去新泽西贝德明斯特的高尔夫俱乐部参加一个资金筹集活动的时候。包括麦克纳尼在内的与希克斯有过密切接触的工作人员被疯狂地换了出来。但是特朗普也和希克斯在一起，尽管如此，他还是和其他对希克斯的诊断一无所知的白宫工作人员一起登上了海军陆战队一号。
从贝德明斯特回家后，特朗普接受了一项快速测试，随后是一项更准确的确认测试，需要几个小时的过程。两人都呈阳性。
“可以肯定地说，他的第一次阳性检测是在返回时，或者至少是在贝德明斯特之后，”麦克纳尼说。
但是，在希克斯落选后，特朗普去新泽西的法院捐赠者那里之前，他接受过测试吗?
他去明尼苏达旅行之前接受过测试吗?
前一天呢，他在克利夫兰第一次与民主党人乔·拜登辩论之前?共同主办此次活动的克利夫兰诊所要求所有与会者提前接受测试。竞选团队必须“证明”他们的候选人和旅行人员在72小时内测试结果呈阴性。“每个活动都符合这个要求，”诊所在一份声明中说。
然而，白宫发言人布莱恩·摩根斯坦周五在MSNBC的一次露面中拒绝证实此事。
摩根斯坦说:“总统不会在就任总统时就在门口检查他的所有HIPAA权利。”他指的是《健康保险便携性和责任法案》(Health Insurance便携性和责任法案)，该法案旨在防止医生和其他投保的人未经同意披露一个人的医疗信息。
特朗普在9月28日星期一与一辆卡车在南草坪举行拍照活动和玫瑰园新闻发布会以宣传冠状病毒测试工作之前，是否接受了测试?在与他的竞选经理比尔·斯捷潘和前新泽西州州长克里斯·克里斯蒂进行辩论准备会议之前，他们都被检测为阳性，那该怎么办?
9月27日，他参观了自己在弗吉尼亚州斯特林的高尔夫球场，下午晚些时候在白宫简报室举行了一场新闻发布会，并在白宫州政府大楼为金星家庭举行了一场晚宴，这是怎么回事?当时在场的海岸警卫队副指挥官查尔斯·W·雷上将后来检测呈阳性，迫使包括参谋长联席会议主席在内的国家最高军事领导人进行自我隔离。
9月26日，在他举行玫瑰园仪式宣布他的下一个最高法院候选人之前，以很少人戴面具的闭门招待会结束，怎么样?在疑似“超级传播者”事件后，许多与会者检测呈阳性。
特朗普那天会传染吗?他可能是传播者吗?
研究显示，耶鲁大学公共卫生学院传染病专家兼系主任艾伯特·柯(Albert Ko)博士指出，一小部分感染者是感染的主要原因，约20%的人对80%的传播负有责任。
虽然尚不清楚特朗普是否真的传播了它，但柯说，“试图识别人以及他们何时可能具有传染性很重要，尤其是当他们与许多其他人接触时。”
乔治梅森大学的传染病流行病学家萨斯基亚·波佩斯库补充说，“人们担心，在他最初的阳性检测之后，他继续从事公共活动，这令人深感担忧，坦率地说，这是不道德的。”
Why won't White House say when Trump last tested negative?
WASHINGTON -- It is a basic, crucial question and one the White House refuses to answer: When was PresidentDonald Trump's last negative test for the coronavirus before he tested positive last week?
“Yeah, I’m not going to give you a detailed readout with timestamps every time the president’s tested," White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters last weekend.
“I can’t reveal that at this time," echoed Alyssa Farah, the White House director of strategic communications. “Doctors would like to keep it private.”
“I don’t want to go backwards,” said Dr. Sean Conley, the president’s physician.
The answer could help fill in vital details about the course of the president’s illness as well as when he may have been contagious and whom else he may have exposed. And the White House refusal to answer makes it hard not to wonder what they're hiding, given other details they've shared.
“At this point it's just so strange that they're unwilling to give us the information," said Michael Joseph Mina, a physician and professor of epidemiology at Harvard’s school of publichealth. “It makes people start thinking things like, ‘Was the president the super-spreader?’... If there was no nefarious activity going on, then they should have no problem answering this question.”
The information is also key to tracking who else may have been exposed to the virus so their contacts can be traced to prevent new clusters of infection.
“Then you can get an idea, potentially, of when he was infected, how long his incubation period was, and also then evaluate who may have been exposed to him over that time frame,” said Benjamin Pinsky, medical director of the clinical virology laboratory at Stanford Health Care. While there is considerable variability between cases, he said, Trump was most likely infectious several days before he tested positive — a period during which he traveled and had close contact with dozens of people.
Senior White House staff and those who are in direct contact with the president are tested for the virus daily. The White House originally gave the impression that Trump, too, was tested every day, with McEnany claiming in July that Trump was “the most tested man in America" and tested “multiple times a day." But Trump contradicted her, saying, “I do probably on average a test every two days, three days."
The current White House line is that Trump is tested “regularly.”
Here's what is known: On Wednesday, Sept. 30, during a trip to Minnesota for a fundraiser and rally, one of the president's closest aides, Hope Hicks, began feeling ill. She isolated herself aboard Air Force Once during the trip home, but the White House appears to have taken no further action.
The next morning, Hicks was again tested for the virus. This time, the results came back positive, just as the president was about to leave for a fundraiser at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. A frantic effort was made to swap out staff who had been in close contact with Hicks, including McEnany. But Trump, who had also been with Hicks, nonetheless boarded Marine One, along with other White House staff still in the dark about Hicks' diagnosis.
After returning home from Bedminster, Trump was administered a rapid test, followed by a more accurate confirming test, which takes several hours to process. Both came back positive.
“Safe to say, his first positive test was upon return or at least after Bedminster,” McEnany said.
But had Trump been tested before he made that trip to court donors in New Jersey after Hicks fell in?
Had he been tested before he traveled to Minnesota?
What about the previous day, before his first debate against Democrat Joe Biden in Cleveland? The Cleveland Clinic, which co-hosted the event, required that all attendees be tested in advance. Campaigns had to “certify” that their candidates and traveling staff had tested negative within 72 hours. “Each campaign complied with this requirement,” the clinic said in a statement.
White House spokesman Brian Morgenstern, however, refused Friday to confirm that was the case in an appearance on MSNBC.
“The president's doesn't check all of his HIPAA rights at the door just when he becomes president," Morgenstern said, referring to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which was written to prevent doctors and others who bill for insurance coverage from disclosing a person’s medical information without their consent.
Was Trump tested Monday, Sept. 28, before he held a photo op with a truck on the South Lawn and a Rose Garden press conference to trumpet coronavirus test efforts? What about before a debate prep session with his campaign manager, Bill Stepien, and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who have both since tested positive?
What about Sept. 27, when he visited his golf course in Sterling, Virginia, held a late afternoon news conference in the White House briefing room, and held an evening reception for Gold Star families on the White House state floor? Adm. Charles W. Ray, the vice commandant of the Coast Guard, who was in attendance, has since tested positive, forcing the nation’s top military leaders, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, into self-quarantine.
What about Sept. 26, before he held a Rose Garden ceremony announcing his next pick for the Supreme Court, complete with closed-door receptions where few wore masks? Numerous attendees have since tested positive following the suspected “super-spreader” event.
Could Trump have been contagious that day? Could he have been the spreader?
Dr. Albert Ko, an infectious disease specialist and department chairman at the Yale School of Public Health, noted that a small proportion of people infected contribute to the majority of infection, with about 20% of people responsible for 80% of transmission, studies show.
While it's unclear if Trump did indeed spread it, Ko said, “trying to identify people and when they could be infectious is important, especially when they are in contact with a lot of other people.”
Added Saskia Popescu, an infectious disease epidemiologist at George Mason University, "There is concern that he continued to engage in public activities after his initial positive test, which is deeply worrisome and frankly unethical.”
