By Charles Stile, NorthJersey.com
In August, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie championed the wearing of masks to ward off the silent and deadly coronavirus.
“I believe that it’s the right example to set to be wearing a mask,” he told The Washington Post.
But in the last week, Christie found himself roaming around without a mask as one of the trusted and chosen few within Trump World, billed — falsely, as it turns out — as a safe zone hermetically sealed off from the silent pathogen that has infected more than 7.3 million and claimed 209,000 lives in the United States.
It’s also a world guided by peer pressure to please an image-obsessed president who mocked mask-wearing as a sign of nanny-state weakness. And it’s a world where few — if any — dared to stop President Donald Trump from manufacturing false hopes and false facts about the COVID-19 plague almost on a daily basis.
On Saturday, Christie discovered that Trump’s alternative universe is most likely another high-risk hot spot, where the disease strikes without regard to rank or social status. It has already infected Trump and his wife, Melania, former adviser Kellyanne Conway and the Jersey-raised Bill Stepien, Trump’s campaign manager and top former Christie operative.
And now Christie.
It’s stunning news — as the terse, somber statement suggests.
Christie’s obesity and age place him at a high risk, and he has suffered from asthma attacks — as he did in 2011 when state troopers rushed him to the Somerset Medical Center.
“I feel fine now,” Christie said at the time as he left the hospital, speaking in a no-big-deal tone of reassurance. He was heading home, he said, to change, eat, catch up on his son’s baseball game and prepare to return to work. He also admitted to being scared — he said he hadn’t felt as frightened since he’d been hospitalized 25 years earlier while he was in law school.
But it was only a week ago that Christie was buzzing around Trump World with confidence and ease. He was among the 200 guests who attended Trump’s announcement of Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett on Sept. 26. Most guests circulated without masks, back slapping, bro-hugging, chatting in confidential huddles.
Social distancing was ignored. The footage of the event conveyed the confidence of a power clique that felt impervious to the disease. Maybe the attendees were bolstered by negative virus tests that cleared them to enter the event. They gave Trump the maskless, COVID-19-free sanctuary photo-op he desired: the powerful elite beaming, glittering and schmoozing in the Rose Garden at the White House.
Now, the ceremony may very well emerge as a super-spreader event. Eight attendees have reported positive COVID-19 tests, including the University of Notre Dame’s president, the Rev. John Jenkins.
“I failed to lead by example, at a time when I’ve asked everyone else in the Notre Dame community to do so,” he wrote. “I especially regret my mistake in light of the sacrifices made on a daily basis by many, particularly our students, in adjusting their lives to observe our health protocols.”
Related news stories:
What is contact tracing, and how does it work with COVID-19? (Washington Post)
The President’s Illness Is Yet Another Dividing Line in the Trump Era (New York Times)
McConnell Cancels Senate Votes as GOP Lawmakers Test Positive (Wall Street Journal)
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