A White House official who fell ill with Covid-19 in September is recovering after three months in the hospital, though he lost his right foot and lower leg in his battle against the virus, according to a friend.
Crede Bailey, the director of the White House security office, was the most severely ill among dozens of Covid-19 cases known to be connected to the White House. Bailey’s family has asked the White House not to publicize his condition, and President Donald Trump has never publicly acknowledged his illness.
Bailey’s friends have raised more than $30,000 for his rehabilitation through a GoFundMe account. The White House declined to say whether Trump has contributed to the effort.
“Crede beat COVID-19 but it came at a significant cost: his big toe on his left foot as well as his right foot and lower leg had to be amputated,” Dawn McCrobie, who organized the GoFundMe effort for Bailey, wrote Dec. 7.
Bailey is now at a rehabilitation center and will be fitted for a prosthetic leg in the coming months, she wrote.
“His family has staggering medical bills from a hospital stay of 2+ months and still counting in the ICU and a long road ahead in rehab before he can go home,” McCrobie wrote Nov. 13, when she created the account. “When he does make it home there will be major changes necessary to deal with his new, and permanent, disability.”
Two people familiar with Bailey’s situation confirmed that McCrobie is a friend. They asked not to be identified because Bailey’s family has tried to keep his illness private.
McCrobie did not respond to messages and White House spokespeople declined to comment. Efforts to reach Bailey and multiple members of his family by phone, e-mail and social media have been unsuccessful.
After this story was published, McCrobie updated the GoFundMe page to advise Bailey’s friends to ignore messages from journalists. “Per Crede’s wishes, please let the media tell their story without your input,” she wrote.
Bailey’s office handles credentialing for access to the White House complex and works closely with the U.S. Secret Service on security measures. Bailey was known on the compound as a strong Trump supporter.
The president has repeatedly minimized the risk from Covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic, both before and after he was hospitalized with the disease Oct. 2-5.
Doctors are still learning about the extent to which the coronavirus can damage the body, but loss of blood flow is one possible consequence. The virus is known to attack the vascular system and can cause deadly blood clots.
When she created the GoFundMe account, McCrobie wrote that “Crede will NOT be happy I’ve done this as he is a proud man who is the first to help everyone else but would never ask for help himself.”
She updated the post Dec. 7 with more details about his condition. He “is blown away by your generosity,” she said to donors.
“His house will need to be renovated to accommodate his disability; ramps to get in/out of the house, the bathroom shower will have to be modified, handrails will have to be installed, etc. etc.,” she wrote.
He’ll also need a new vehicle that can accommodate a wheelchair and that can be modified so the gas pedal can be operated with Bailey’s left leg, she wrote. “I could go on and on but you get the picture – there are a lot of adjustments ahead!”
I hope this communication finds you and your families well and taking in the beauty and joy of this holiday season. As we head into winter break, I wanted to provide you with the following updates:
Last Night’s Board Meeting Regarding In-person Learning: The Board Trustees unanimously approved the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), that was passed by the Benicia Teachers’ Association. The MOU outlines the impacts and effects related to any in-person learning and was part of the motion the Trustees passed at the November19th Board meeting.
As a reminder, the Board Trustees voted 3-2 at that Board meeting to approve the implementation of in-person learning: Pending eligibility on the California State Government’s four-tiered system and approval of the Memorandum of Understanding with our Benicia Teachers Association (BTA) to implement in-person hybrid learning. In my update of Friday November 20th, I clarified by stating until that happens, BUSD we will remain in virtual instruction at least through the winter break.
While the Board Trustees did pass the MOU last night, they asked for the November 19th item to be brought back to the January 14th board meeting for further discussion regarding the timeline for implementation. This means we will remain in our virtual learning model at least until the January 14th board meeting. I will provide an update following that meeting.
Trustee Changes: During last night’s meeting, we also thanked outgoing trustee Dr. Stacy Holguin for her outstanding work as a Board Trustee during the past five-and-a-half years. Thank you Dr. Holguin! You served with distinction and we are forever grateful for your commitment to BUSD. We also swore in two trustees: Dr. Gethsemane Moss, who has served on the Board since August 2019 and is starting a new, four-year term, and welcomed CeCe Grubbs, who is starting her first four-year term.
Our Amazing Food Services Department: I want to give a shout-out to Ms. Tania Courntey, our Director of Food Services, and her absolutely amazing team, for preparing meal packages for over 400 of our BUSD families. These food packages cover the two-week winter break period and were provided free to any family who requested one. Thank you Ms. Courtney and team!!
The Future: As we head into the holidays for a much needed break, I sincerely hope everyone is able to find ways to safely connect with family and friends in ways that build strong and supportive bonds. We need each other more now than ever.
As a school district, we will continue our ongoing focus on providing the best educational experience for all of our students. We will continue the important focus, from the Board level to the classroom, on equity and opportunity, striving to ensure the success of all our students (all means all), while focusing on any barriers that may impede the success of any student in our system.
The future is bright for our great district and I have the utmost confidence in our entire team as we continue to reflect, improve and keep our focus on our most noble task: helping each student reach his or her potential in a safe and welcoming learning environment.
Bruce Springsteen’s 2006 song, “Long Walk Home,” offered a stark metaphor for George W. Bush’s America. The protagonist returns to a hometown peopled by friends who, having abandoned their ideals, have become strangers to him.
Since 2016, that feeling has rung true for many of us, arguably to an even greater extent.
But the song is also resolute and hopeful about the long walk back to enduring ideals, a better town and a better country. Its most memorable lines are:
You know that flag flying over the courthouse means certain things are set in stone
Who we are, what we’ll do and what we won’t
That positive message came to mind this week, as the nation stepped back from a president who would do anything he could get away with and as we took key steps toward installing a successor who values the public interest and public health.
More specifically, the Electoral College officially affirmed Joe Biden as President-elect. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other top Republicans finally recognized Biden’s win, albeit shamefully belatedly.
Moreover, a New York nurse received the first shot in the national coronavirus inoculation campaign. The FDA cleared a second vaccine for imminent approval.
To use a phrase that Donald Trump misused so often, so dishonestly and so ridiculously, we’re finally rounding the corner.
A Rough Road
We still face an awfully long, awfully rough road ahead. In addition to the good news, the week also saw the United States top 300,000 official Covid fatalities (with the true Covid toll, measured in excess deaths, standing at over 350,00).
The worst is yet to come this deadly winter. Total lives lost here could reach half a million or more. Debates and egregious inequities regarding vaccine distribution will roil our country and the world.
We also could see Trump at his worst in his final weeks in office. Both before and after he sails off into his post-presidency sewer, he’ll do his best to poison our democracy. His supporters will try to make a fiasco out of Congress’s normally pro forma tallying of electoral votes on January 6. And if there is one lesson we’ve learned about Trump, there’s no low to which he won’t go, including lows we might not even imagine.
Finally, it’s clear that our problems transcend Trump. Even if he disappears from the scene, he’ll leave behind a Republican Party whose de facto denigration of democracy is only rivaled by its refusal to address climate change and the myriad other problems plaguing the country. What’s worse, a big chunk of the public supports such stands.
Back to Bruce
Which brings us back to Bruce and to some sense of hope. His assertion, “that flag flying over the courthouse means certain things are set in stone,” takes on retrospective resonance. The judiciary, including many Trump appointees, consistently rejected the president’s preposterous attempts to overturn the election. That flag still flies.
Springsteen’s insistence that there are certain things we won’t do originally applied to the Bush administration’s violations of our values, with torture topping the list. The administration shattered standards set in stone (even as it upheld some others, such as the president preaching tolerance toward Muslims in the aftermath of 9/11). It did so at the price of what the flag represents, of ideals we needed to restore.
Trump has committed so many transgressions that it’s hard to know where to begin listing what he’s done that previous American presidents would not do. Costing hundreds of thousands of lives through pandemic denialism and lies? Ripping hundreds of migrant children from their parents, perhaps permanently? Spewing and spreading hate at every opportunity? Seeking to destroy our democracy?
We’ve Been Here Before
But let’s recall the good news: This week saw us set out on the long walk to undo Trump’s legacy, to restore some normalcy and decency to our governance, to launch policies that will help millions of Americans and – after months of incompetence, indifference and disinformation – to conquer Covid.
We’ve trekked on such paths many times before in our history, never completing the journey but often achieving significant success. Springsteen wrote “Long Road Home” two years before Barack Obama’s election most recently took us back onto a positive course.
Obama’s presidency was far from perfect. However, he led the country out of a very dark phase, rescued it from an economic abyss, enacted health care reforms that helped many millions and otherwise showed us what our better angels can accomplish. The fact that Trump succeeded Obama does not negate such progress.
Begin Again
A “Long Road Home” also says this:
Here everybody has a neighbor, everybody has a friend
Everybody has a reason to begin again
My father said, “Son, we’re lucky in this town, it’s a beautiful place to be born…
We can begin again by grasping how lucky we still are, compared to so many other countries on their own obstruction-strewn roads.
I know that “lucky” is that last word we might want to use, in view of both the last four years and our many troubling long-term trends. I by no means suggest that we should be happy with our situation.
Nonetheless, America’s relative levels of wealth, education, resources, security and institutional independence and competence place us in a better state than numerous less fortunate nations. We should remain aware that reformers and ordinary citizens in those places have prevailed over their own, even more desperate plights or are now striving to do so.
Consider South Africa, for instance. Nelson Mandela aptly named his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom partly because of the decades of sustained struggle he and his anti-apartheid movement undertook. Like his fellow non-white citizens, he endured potentially spirit-crushing racist indignities and abuses for much of his life. He then spent 27 years in prison.
And he prevailed, leading the defeat of apartheid and ascending to his country’s presidency in 1994.
And consider Cambodia. As I write this, an old friend and other leaders of the country’s pro-democracy opposition party plan to fly back there from abroad early next month, to face trial and quite possibly jail on trumped-up charges.
Why? In order to shine an international light on the repressive thugocracy ruling the country. And to continue, potentially at great cost, their own long walks to freedom.
We can ignore such other nations’ struggles that should inspire us. We can view the wreckage Trump has wrought as impossible to overcome. We can surrender to the obstacles that he, McConnell and so many others throw in our path. We can understandably wonder what kind of populace accords him so many votes.
Or we can accept that the fight for freedom is never-ending, that the long walk home is grueling and that, while we can never get all the way there, we have reason to begin again.
A record 444 new positive cases in Solano County in just one day; ACTIVE cases at new record over 2,200; ICU beds at a dangerous level of only 13% available; and our positivity test rate is at 1 in every 5 tested, 20%. The virus is spreading here among all age groups. Solano has come under the Regional stay-at-home order as of today… See Solano County press release for details.
Thursday, December 17: a single-day record of 444 new cases overnight, no new deaths. Since Feb: 14,713 cases, more than 720 hospitalized, 93 deaths.Compare previous report, Wednesday, Dec. 16:Summary
Solano County reported a record of 444 (!!) new cases overnight. As of today, Solano has seen an average increase of 247 (!) new cases per dayover the last 14 days! (source: covid19.ca.gov) Total of 14,713 cases since the outbreak started.
Deaths – no new deaths reported today, a total of 93 Solano deaths since the pandemic began.
Active cases – Solano reported another shocking increase of 199 additional active cases today (after adding 222 yesterday), for a record total of 2,223 active cases. COMPARE: average number of Active Cases during October was 284, average in November was 650 – and TODAY we are at 2,223! Is the County equipped to contact trace so many infected persons? Who knows? To my knowledge, Solano has offered no reports on contact tracing.
Hospitalizations –CAUTION ON SOLANO HEALTH DEPARTMENT REPORTING: According to Solano Health Officer Dr. Bela Matyas, the County “occasionally” updates Age Group hospitalizations retroactively, adding substantial numbers. Thus, many hospitalizations are never reported as CURRENTLY hospitalized. Good example today: Today, the number of CURRENTLY hospitalized remained unchanged, total of 107. But it would seem that Solano County performed another of its “occasional” updates today of those previously hospitalized among age groups. The County added 80 previously unreported hospitalizations yesterday and 35 more today, for a new total of 721 persons hospitalized since the outbreak began. [For the numbers used in my manual calculation of total hospitalizations, see age group stats below. For COVID19-CA.GOV numbers, see BenIndy page, COVID-19 Hospitalizations Daily Update for Solano County.]
Testing – The County reports today that 820 residents were tested overnight, a total of 151,566 unduplicated residents have now been tested for COVID-19 since the outbreak began. 33.9% of Solano County’s 447,643 residents (2019) have been tested.
Positive Test Rate – HIGH THREAT LEVEL, 20.1%
Solano County reported our HIGHEST EVER 7-day average positive test rate today of 20.1%, up from yesterday’s 18% and far and away over the State’s purple tier threshold of 8%. Average percent positive test rates are among the best metrics for measuring community spread of the virus. The much lower and more stableCalifornia 7-day average test rate has also been on an alarming rise lately, up today from 11.9 to 12.8%. (Note that Solano County displays past weeks and months in a 7-day test positivity line graph which also shows daily results. However, the chart does not display an accurate number of cases for the most recent days, as there is a lag time in receiving test results. The 7-day curve therefore also lags behind due to unknown recent test results.)
By Age Group – Surge in case numbers and hospitalizations!
Youth 17 and under – 55 new cases today, total of 1,656 cases, representing 11.3% of the 14,713 total cases. No new hospitalizations reported today among this age group, total of 17 since the outbreak began. Thankfully, no deaths have ever been reported in Solano County in this age group. But cases among Solano youth rose steadily over the summer, from 5.6% of total cases on June 8 to 11% on August 31 and has plateaued at over 11% since September 30. Youth are 22% of Solano’s general population, so this 11.x% may seem low. The significance is this: youth are SERIOUSLY NOT IMMUNE (!) – in fact at least 14 of our youth have been hospitalized since the outbreak began.
Persons 18-49 years of age – 238 (!) new cases today (after adding 192 yesterday), total of 8,561 cases. This age group is 41% of the population in Solano, but represents around 60% of the total cases, by far the highest percentage of all age groups. The County reported 11 new hospitalizations among persons in this age group today. A total of 231 are reported to have been hospitalized since the outbreak began. No new deaths in this young group today, total of 6 deaths. Some in this group are surely at high risk, as many are providing essential services among us, and some may be ignoring public health orders. I expect this group is a major factor in the spread of the virus.
Persons 50-64 years of age – 104 (!) new cases today (after adding 78 yesterday), total of 2,939 cases. This age group represents 20% of the 14,713 total cases. The County reported 9 new hospitalizations among persons in this age group today. A total of 193 are reported to have been hospitalized since the outbreak began. No new deaths in this age group today, a total of 16 deaths.
Persons 65 years or older – 47 new cases today (after adding 54 yesterday), total of 1,549, representing 10.5% of Solano’s 14,713 total cases. The County reported 15 new hospitalizations among persons in this age group today. A total of 280 have been hospitalized since the outbreak began. No new deaths were reported in this age group today. A total of 71 of our elders have died of COVID, accounting for 76%of Solano’s 93 total deaths.
City Data
Benicia added 15 new cases today, total of 408 cases since the outbreak began.
Dixon added 24 new cases today, total of 1024 cases.
Fairfield added 99 (!) new cases today, total of 4,279 cases.
Rio Vista added 3 new cases today, total of 122 cases.
Suisun City added 44 (!) new cases today, total of 1,038 cases.
Vacaville added 99 (!) new cases today, total of 3,207 cases.
Vallejoadded 151 (!!) new cases today, total of 4,583 cases.
Unincorporated areasadded 1 new case today, total of 52 cases.
Race / Ethnicity
The County report on race / ethnicity includes case numbers, hospitalizations, deaths and Solano population statistics. This information is discouragingly similar to national reports that indicate significantly worse outcomes among black and brown Americans. Note that all of this data surely undercounts Latinx Americans, as there is a large group of “Multirace / Others” which likely is composed mostly of Latinx members of our communities.
Asian Americans are 14% of Solano’s population, and account for 10% of cases, 12% of hospitalizations, and 17% of deaths.
Black Americans are 14% of Solano’s population, and account for 11% of cases, but 16% of hospitalizations, and 22% of deaths.
Latinx Americans are 26% of Solano’s population, but account for 21% of cases, 25% of hospitalizations, and 17% of deaths.
White Americans are 39% of the population in Solano County, but only account for 27% of cases, 28% of hospitalizations and 33% of deaths.
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