As far as I could tell, the White House’s lone concession to the catastrophe unfolding before our eyes was that a few junior aides working in the suite of offices accessible to the press corps sat at their desks in masks. During my August trip, none of the aides breathing the same air in this cramped warren of offices had seen fit to wear one…

Inside the building, the atmosphere seemed tense. A former administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to be frank, told me he’s worried that he’s been exposed and plans to get tested. More people at the White House are getting infected, as Meadows predicted this morning they would. Yesterday came news that Trump’s senior adviser Hope Hicks was ill. Today it was a press aide who tested positive, along with a group of journalists.

Unless and until the White House starts taking this pandemic much more seriously, anyone visiting the grounds is at risk. The president has been for months. After my visit in August, I wrote that if I’d torn off my mask and had a coughing fit inside the White House, it didn’t seem like anyone would’ve especially cared. That felt true today too. But by then, it wouldn’t have mattered. Whatever illness I’d brought into the building would’ve already been in the air.