Nearly 900 Secret Service members were infected with the coronavirus. A watchdog blames Trump.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

Link to tweet

Almost 900 Secret Service members have tested positive for the coronavirus since March 2020, according to a watchdog report, and many of those infected had protection assignments that included the safety of the president and vice president.

The nonprofit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington published a report Tuesday detailing how 881 Secret Service employees had tested positive between March 1, 2020 and March 9, 2021. The data, which came from a Freedom of Information Act request to the Secret Service, found that 477 members of the special agent division had been infected. Described by the Department of Homeland Security as “the elite agents you see protecting the President and Vice President,” special agents are also responsible for a number of safety assignments overseas and in the United States, such as protecting the president and vice president’s families, presidential candidates and visiting foreign leaders......

The Post previously reported that more than 130 Secret Service officers — roughly 10 percent of the agency’s core security team — who helped protect the White House and Trump when he traveled had been ordered to isolate or quarantine because they tested positive for the coronavirus or had close contact with infected co-workers. Trump’s insistence on holding public events — such as his Tulsa rally — while the pandemic was in full force last year left the Secret Service dealing with coronavirus cases in the aftermath of his travel blitz.

“Never before has the Secret Service run up against a president so intent on putting himself first regardless of the costs, including to those around him,” Ned Price, a national security expert and former CIA analyst, said to The Post in August.

[burrowowl]

1. K&R

[moondust]

2. No masks?

Did TFG forbid the wearing of masks because it would hurt "the image" and people might get the "wrong idea" and take the virus seriously? Or did they simply follow his "lead" assuming the "President" would know what he was doing?

[malaise]

3. The Slobfather is responsible for

way more Covid infections and deaths.
i wish him all he wished others and then some

[brewens]

4. It seemed to me that the former guys White House may have had the worst COVID record of

any similar sized organization. Is there any corporation, school, church or agency that did worse? Especially since they had all the resources they needed to have done the best job keeping their people safe.