I'm puzzled about the timing here. It's not clear to me that both POTUS and FLOTUS would be testing positive 48 hours after exposure.

Prior exposure? Others infected?

https://www.npr.org/2020/10/01/919344239/trump-adviser-hope-hicks-tests-positive-for-coronavirus

Update: according to @jallepap, Hicks flew on Airforce One with Trump on Monday. This timing makes a lot more sense to me. Still definitely worth trying to figure out if there is a common source of exposure instead of transmission from Hicks to Trump/Melania.

Thinking about it a bit more: Hope Hicks tested positive yesterday, but has been traveling with Trump daily—so she would have been tested daily also. With both of them testing positive for the first time within a day of each other, most likely there's a common source of exposure.

Also thinking about the risk to Biden: Assuming that Trump is tested daily, I think it should be low. He tested negative Tuesday and Wednesday, so I would not expect sufficient titers to have been contagious Tuesday.

I'm also puzzled about Hicks. She had to be getting tested daily to travel with POTUS.

Reports were saying she was *symptomatic* yesterday. That doesn't make sense given that people tend to be infectious (and test positive, we'd presume) 2-3 days prior to symptoms.

Can anyone confirm that Hicks was symptomatic (not just positive) yesterday?

Seems like media were reporting that.

Does anyone know what testing technology is used by the White House?

I could see an antigen test coming up negative the day before symptoms, but that seems unlikely for RNA-based tests.

Possibly relevant to the timing of when POTUS tested positive: https://twitter.com/TimInHonolulu/status/1311883569086623744

For everyone reading this thread: I'm thinking aloud here in this thread, and soliciting feedback from others doing the same.

This is not a definitive take.

There are too many unknowns right now.

I *am* worried about a common source and a larger cluster in the White House.

Another oddity about the entire thing is that both POTUS and FLOTUS tested positive, but other than Hicks we have no other reports of positive cases within the White House. Especially if Hicks is not the source, I'd expect a larger cluster. Why haven't we seen it?

One fairly plausible scenario that would explain most of the anomalies is that perhaps the White House is not testing as thoroughly as we've led to believe. This would allow (1) Hicks to be symptomatic before testing positive,...

(2) an asymptomatic spreader to have been undetected and thus get close enough to transmit to POTUS, FLOTUS, and Hicks, and (3) other White House cases to remain undetected because tests haven't been run yet.