Reporter Grills Psaki About Protecting Biden From Covid Amid Rash of Infections: ‘The Bubble Is Looking Pretty Porous Lately’

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was grilled about President Joe Biden’s Covid protocols amid a new raft of high-profile infections close to the president.

On Thursday, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi became the latest in a line of people who have tested positive for Covid after being close to the president, who mingled maskless at an East Room event on Tuesday.

At Wednesday’s press briefing, New York Times White House correspondent Katie Rogers pressed Psaki about the precautions being taken around the president, and noted that “the bubble is looking pretty porous lately”:

Q Thanks. I know that you’ve talked about the stringent measures you’ve taken to keep the President safe from COVID that go beyond the CDC guidelines, but that’s such a visual contrast between that and the President showing up maskless in front of people at some of these events. So how do you make sure that you keep that protection bubble around him? I’m sure you feel like you’re asked to explain this ad nauseum. But —

MS. PSAKI: No, it’s okay.

Q — the bubble is looking pretty porous lately. So how do you keep that, sort of, enforced?

MS. PSAKI: Well, I would say, first, that we continue to
take measures that go beyond what the CDC protocols are. That includes ensuring that everybody who’s going to see the President in a meeting is tested in advance — or if you’re traveling with the President, you’re tested in advance.

When possible, we take steps to socially distance in circumstances, which certainly the Oval Office and other meeting spaces in the White House allow for.

If an individual in the White House is a close contact, they are asked to or required to, I guess you could say, wear a mask for 10 days after that exposure. And they are also tested regularly following.

So, I would say we take additional measures that go beyond what the CDC protocols and requirements are to ensure that we’re doing everything we can to keep principals safe — the President, the Vice President, and others, of course, in the building.

Q Was everyone tested before the East Room event tomorrow — everyone who was there?

MS. PSAKI: It’s not at public events. I’m talking about at meetings. But again, I can check on the protocols for public events. Sure.

Q Have you changed any protocol surrounding him in recent days as more people are — in the administration contract this virus?

MS. PSAKI: We’ve continued to implement stringent and strict protocols.

I would note that even as we’re looking at, with BA.2 — a very transmissible variant, as we all know, and our public health officials have told us. We’ve seen an increase in cases — right? — in the country, in the region, among the press corps, and certainly in the White House. And — but it is not, at this point, what we saw during Omicron.

And what — the steps we have taken here, including policy put in place to ensure that “return to work” was part of our policies in the federal government, are meant to ensure that can continue to be the case. And even while we have individuals who are out with COVID, everyone here is required to be tested, highly recommended to be boosted. People who are out because of that — the vast, vast majority have mild cases and are continuing to work from home.

And obviously, we are continuing to implement the “return to work” policy and feel we have the measures necessary to do that.

Watch above via The White House.

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