Trump returns to White House, downplaying virus that hospitalized him and turned West Wing into a ‘ghost town’

President Trump returned to the White House from the hospital on Monday, saying that he had recovered from the novel coronavirus and that people should not be afraid of a disease that has killed more than 209,000 Americans.

Trump’s comments a few hours before leaving Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., again downplaying the coronavirus, came despite evidence that White House decisions to flout public health guidelines and engage in practices viewed as reckless have had dire consequences in the West Wing.

More than a dozen White House officials have tested positive for the coronavirus in recent days, a steadily increasing total that grew again Monday to include press secretary Kayleigh McEnany. How the return of an infected president to such a setting could be managed safely was one of several questions left unanswered Monday as Trump’s medical team briefed reporters about his condition.

“We’ve worked with our infectious-disease experts to make some recommendations for how to keep everything safe down at the White House,” Trump’s doctor Sean Conley said after describing the president’s condition as improving, though he said Trump was “not out of the woods yet.”

Conley declined to describe what specific steps would be made to ensure a safe environment at a building that doubles as a personal residence and a government office while the president remains contagious, which could be for several more days at least.

“I wish I could go into that more, but I just can’t,” he said.