When the pandemic began its rampage through America in March, one might have wondered which American or Americans would be most zealously protected from the coronavirus. The obvious answer, of course, would have been the President of the United States. After all, the nation’s chief executive is the only person with an entire government department dedicated to his protection. Keeping the head of state safe from threats, be they an assassin’s bullets or a deadly virus, is a national security priority. Certainly the Secret Service and White House medical staff would do everything necessary to keep him safe.
That would have been a sensible answer, but it would have been wrong. As it turned out the most protected people in America were LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Jimmy Butler, and all the other men and women who played in the NBA and WNBA bubbles. (Hat tip to the National Hockey League as well, which operated a successful bubble in Canada.)
Why did these sports leagues succeed where our national security apparatus miserably failed? The answer is simple: they actually tried.
For many Americans, the COVID crisis got real on the night of March 11, 2019. It's hard to recall now after all we've been through, but the NBA's announcement that Rudy Gobert of the Utah Jazz had tested positive set off a shock wave. Gobert isn't a household name, even among basketball fans, but he was at the time the most well-known person in America to get COVID. Gobert was also an early virus skeptic, having joked about not taking the virus seriously. He made a point of touching every microphone after a press conference days before testing positive.
The league's announcement that night that it was suspending play began a week of surreal news. Donald Trump announced (porous) travel restrictions from Europe. Tom Hanks tested positive. March Madness was cancelled. The world as Americans knew it began to unravel.
The NBA then began a long process of trying to figure out how and when to come back. With billions of dollars in television rights fees at stake, league executives had every incentive to come up with a plan. They consulted with scientists to determine their options. They waited until more was known about the virus. They finally settled on the concept of “the bubble”: a closed environment in which NBA players, families and staff would arrive, quarantine, be regularly tested and remain isolated from the rest of the world while they played a modified basketball season to a conclusion. They chose Walt Disney World in Orlando (along with Bradenton, Florida, for the WNBA.)
A bubble would have been a reasonable approach for the nation's leaders to consider to protect the commander-in-chief and other vital leaders in our national security structure. The nation hasn't had a president die in office since John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963. Given President Trump's age and lack of physical fitness, one must imagine that top officials at the Secret Service lost sleep trying to figure out how to keep the virus out of the Oval Office. Creating a bubble of sorts in the White House, with only a limited number of fully quarantined people allowed access to the president and other top officials, would have certainly made sense.
Instead, they did virtually nothing. Despite ample evidence that they were unreliable, the White House relied on Abbot’s quick turnaround tests to determine whether people coming in contact with the president had COVID. People sauntered in and out of the White House for months with no assurance that they weren't infected. Even Mitch McConnell was afraid to visit the place, telling reporters Thursday “my impression was that their approach to how to handle this was different from mine and what I insisted that we do in the Senate, which is to wear a mask and practice social distancing.” The president wandered a nation ravaged by the virus, maskless and clueless to the threat, or perhaps convinced he was impervious. It was only a matter of time.
The NBA had over 1,500 of people to protect. Twenty-two teams entered the bubble in July, each with dozens of players, coaches and family members. At the time they arrived, the state of Florida was in the midst of a full-scale outbreak. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver was skeptical of the bubble. “I resisted it, frankly,” he told reporter Marc Stein. Strict protocols were put in place about behavior and players. One player (Danuel House of the Houston Rockets) was kicked out of the bubble for having an unauthorized female guest visit his room.
But the problems were few and far between. The NBA will conclude its season successfully sometime in this week (the Lakers lead the Miami Heat 3-1 in the NBA Finals at the time of this writing; game five is Friday night). The total number of players or other league personnel to test positive for COVID during three months in the bubble? Exactly zero.
The NBA bubble is what America could have looked like in 2020 if the Trump administration had chosen a different route. The NBA listened to scientists, tested early and often, and created strict rules that everyone had to follow. The Trump administration did none of those things. We have all seen the results.
Give Donald Trump credit for one thing: he practiced what he preached when it came to COVID. He told Americans not to take it seriously, and didn't take it seriously himself. He got away with it for a long time, until finally hosting what appears to have been a maskless superspreader event on the grounds of the White House to present the Supreme Court nomination of Amy Coney Barrett.
And so last week, while LeBron's Lakers and Butler's Miami Heat headed to the NBA Finals, Donald Trump headed to the hospital.
