President Biden will show up for part of the White House Correspondents Association dinner late Saturday but won’t attend the meal portion of the event, and will probably wear a mask during most of the comedy roast and presentation of scholarships.
It is a glaring example of the tradeoffs Mr. Biden faces in stiff-arming a virus that is infecting top aides at a rapid clip while practicing what he preaches in urging Americans to trust vaccines and treatments, evaluate their own risks and enjoy a sense of normalcy.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said she expects the president to wear a mask for much of the evening.
“It was important to him to attend the dinner, to honor the work of journalists — all of you, all of your colleagues around the world, something the former president didn’t do,” Ms. Psaki said Friday. “We also took additional steps. He’s not attending the dinner portion, he’s coming for the program. He will likely wear a mask when he’s not speaking.”
The dinner also features a full vaccination requirement and same-day testing.
Mr. Biden’s decision to rely on protocols and limit his attendance at the crowded indoor event coincides with a spate of infections at the White House.
His communications director, Kate Bedingfield, said Friday she tested positive for COVID-19 and met with Mr. Biden as recently as Wednesday.
Ms. Bedingfield said she was not in close contact with Mr. Biden, which is defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as someone who was within 6 feet of an infected person for a cumulative 15 minutes in a 24-hour period.
“I last saw the president Wednesday in a socially-distanced meeting while wearing an N-95 mask, and he is not considered a close contact as defined by the CDC,” she tweeted.
The White House has relied on that definition to reassure the public amid a series of close calls for Mr. Biden.
Vice President Kamala Harris is in isolation after testing positive at the beginning of the week. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Cabinet officials and visiting dignitaries have also tested positive after floating in the president’s orbit in recent weeks.
Mr. Biden, 79, has received four shots of a COVID-19 vaccine, but his advanced age makes some public health experts skittish about his potential exposure to the virus as he tries to move the country out of the pandemic phase of the virus and into a sense of normalcy.
The president is tested regularly and there are strict protocols around him, including same-day testing and frequent mask-wearing, as demonstrated by Ms. Bedingfield’s tweet.
Ms. Psaki confirmed Friday that White House staff take additional precautions around the president.
“We often wear masks, almost always wear masks in those meetings. We try to socially distance whenever possible,” she said.
Yet Mr. Biden is forging ahead with public events in a kind of prominent test case of America’s ability to live with COVID-19.
Mr. Biden spoke at a funeral for former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright last week and is sticking by his dinner plans Saturday, even though his chief medical adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, decided to withdraw from the correspondents’ event after sizing up his personal risks. Another Washington gala, the Gridiron Dinner, appeared to be a super-spreader event earlier this month.
Ms. Psaki said Mr. Biden will be up on the dais on Saturday — not among the crowd — and will not attend any receptions.
“He’ll be there about an hour of 90 minutes depending on how long [keynote speaker] Trevor Noah speaks,” she said.
More broadly, the decision to attend the dinner serves as a signal to the American public as Mr. Biden argues he’s corralled the virus as promised.
The president’s team has slowly inched away from the type of mandates and restrictions that dominated the early response to the pandemic.
After a judge in Florida forced Mr. Biden to abandon a remaining mask mandate on public transportation, reporters asked the president if Americans should still wear masks.
It’s “up to them,” Mr. Biden said. But the administration eventually appealed the ruling.
For more information, visit The Washington Times COVID-19 resource page.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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