Mr. Trump has asked advisers whether he needs to reduce how many hands he shakes, but he has shown reluctance to change his actual habits — long before the current outbreak, he made a habit of slathering his hands with sanitizer once he finishes with crowds. At a closed-door fund-raiser at Mar-a-Lago on Sunday, he appeared to avoid shaking hands in video posted on social media, elbow bumping one guest instead.
The president’s mood appeared grim Monday morning as the markets plummeted while he left Palm Beach, where he spent the weekend golfing, hosting a birthday party and having dinner with Brazil’s visiting president. He swiftly boarded Air Force One without waiting for news photographers to arrive on the tarmac below the stairs, to take his picture, as he typically does. After landing in Orlando, though, he made a point of shaking hands with Gov. Ron DeSantis and then briefly shaking hands with a crowd of supporters who had gathered to watch his arrival.
Mr. Trump has been accused of underplaying the danger of the virus even as his administration has imposed travel restrictions and struggled to expand the distribution of testing kits. In private, the president has complained that his own health secretary was being “alarmist,” but fear over the virus has begun to ripple through the economy and society in remarkable ways, as organizations cancel conventions and travel, schools and universities begin to cancel in-person classes and airlines and hotels weigh significant layoffs.
The impact on American life was evident even in Mr. Trump’s own schedule. Aside from the fund-raiser, he had been scheduled to address a global health care conference in Orlando, but it was canceled because of fear of coronavirus.
Mr. Trump is scheduled to attend a conference of the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas this weekend and has made no changes to his plans so far.
Former Senator Norm Coleman, Republican of Minnesota and chairman of the group, sent out a message to people planning to attend intended to reassure them about the low risk of coronavirus by citing the president’s participation.
“It’s important to note that we have the most protected and high-profile speaker in the country attending, President Donald J. Trump,” he wrote. “Our regular communications with both the White House Coronavirus Task Force and Secret Service indicate that the president would not be at risk at our conference and as such have every intention of joining us this coming weekend. Should that change, we will of course let you know.”