Coronavirus Update: Trump Exempted From Wearing Face Mask At White House

On April 3, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended "wearing cloth face coverings in public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain (e.g., grocery stores and pharmacies) especially in areas of significant community-based transmission" of COVID-19.

Despite a plethora of health experts telling it to do so since then, the White House only complied with this health guidance Monday. It sent an email to staffers ordering all of them to wear face masks inside the building. White House staffers can take-off their masks while they're seated at their desks and are able to maintain six feet of distance from others.

Incredibly, President Donald Trump is exempted from this order, aides told The Washington Post. The president is unlikely to wear a mask, the source noted.

"We are requiring everyone who enters the West Wing to wear a mask or facial covering," wrote the White House Management Office in a Monday email to staffers.

This long-delayed move was forced on the White House only after one of Trump's U.S. Navy personal valets and vice president Mike Pence's press secretary, Katie Miller, tested positive for the coronavirus last week.

Trump continues to tempt fate -- and COVID-19 -- by refusing to wear a face mask or face covering of any kind to give him more protection from the highly-infectious coronavirus that's already killed 82,000 Americans.

The reason for Trump's decision not to don a mask anywhere is doing so will strongly undercut his oft-repeated claim the pandemic is fading away, according to CTV News sources. Donning a face mask will also belie Trump's current narrative it's safe to open-up the country for business and that diagnostic testing is overrated.

This same source said a puzzled Trump asked why his U.S. Navy valets weren't ordered to wear masks before this week despite these people following Trump's example of not wearing face masks. Trump insists he's protected from coronavirus infection because he and the all the people he comes into contact with are regularly tested for the virus. Last week, however, Trump admitted there can be mistakes even with regular testing.

Dr. Francis Collins, director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NHS), told a Senate committee last week the Abbott ID Now, which is the rapid testing device at the White House, has a high 15% "false negative rate." This means some 15% of patients will be told they're negative for COVID-19 when they're in fact positive.