CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey has opted not to quarantine or take other precautions after attending a White House meeting last month hosted by President Donald Trump, Morrisey’s spokesman told a newspaper.
Morrisey attended the Sept. 23 roundtable discussion on “Protecting Consumers from Social Media Abuses,” the Charleston Gazette-Mail reported. Nine days later, Trump was hospitalized for treatment of COVID-19. His doctors indicated he began experiencing symptoms of the virus earlier in the day.
Morrisey “was not in close proximity of the president during that meeting fifteen days ago,” the Republican attorney general’s press secretary, Curtis Johnson, said in a statement.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the incubation period for COVID-19 — the period from exposure to the virus to first symptoms — may range from two to 14 days. That makes it possible that Trump was infected when Morrisey attended the Sept. 23 meeting, days before what is believed to be a super-spreader event during a Rose Garden ceremony to announce Trump’s U.S. Supreme Court nominee, the newspaper reported.
CDC protocols call for people who have been in contact with someone infected with COVID-19 to stay at home and avoid contact with others for 14 days.
