NBC Public Health Analyst: There Needs to Be ‘Enormous’ Contact Tracing of People Around Trump, Another In-Person Debate Unlikely

NBC News public health analyst Dr. Irwin Redlener called into MSNBC early Friday to talk about the implications of President Donald Trump testing positive for the coronavirus.

Redlener noted the reporting that Hope Hicks was symptomatic and said she could’ve been affected some time last month. He said, “So we have a couple of weeks of potential contact tracing that has to be done, which is an enormous task here. And it’s not just the huge in terms of the number of people in the president’s immediate entourage… People are going to have to be tested and tracked. All of their families, too, and the people they associated with because the White House is filled with people who like the president have rejected the fundamental notions of how one protects themselves.”

He said one thing people around the president can do is “get rid of this notion that masks don’t work.”

“Masks do work. And masks and social separation are the only tools that we have, obviously. There’s hand hygiene,” Redlener said. He also said that Joe Biden needs to be immediately tested after this week’s debate.

There’s been a lot of discussion on how this stunning news may impact the presidential race. As far as Redlener’s concerned, he said, this marks “the end of political debates in 2020, two that are in-person.”

He added they could perhaps figure out something on Zoom, but said, “It’s going to be a very, very different campaign from now until November 3rd.”

You can watch above, via MSNBC.