First ladies have been visiting the Children’s National Hospital in Washington, DC during the holidays for decades – and even a global pandemic didn’t stop the tradition. But Melania Trump’s fourth and final celebratory visit as first lady on Tuesday looked a bit different from previous seasons.
“Every year I cherish my visit to @ChildrensNatl to read a holiday story to the children and meet the dedicated and inspiring healthcare professionals,” Trump tweeted Tuesday, share photos of the event from previous years. “This will be my 4th vacation visit there and I look forward to spending time with so many brave children and their families again.”
The hospital adjusted its events program to make sure the visit was as safe as possible during the pandemic, the Associated Press reports.
Trump still sat in a chair in front of a huge, lavishly decorated Christmas tree in the facility’s atrium to deliver her annual talk, but the crowd was much smaller than in years past. Rather than reading to a large group of patients and their families, hospital staff and performers, Trump was seen in a Facebook Live video posted by the hospital walking to the tree in front of just a handful of people.
Two patients, 6-year-old Riley Whitney and 8-year-old Sofia Martinez, sat on a red carpet during her lecture to the first lady, AP reports.
“It’s great to be here. This is one of my favorite events during the holiday season,” Trump said before reading Todd Zimmerman’s children’s story “Oliver the Ornament Meets Marley & Joan and Abbey”. The story is part of the holiday books “Oliver the Ornament,” which Trump said began reading three years ago.
She also urged the children to “stay strong and healthy” before the story began.
Everyone at the event wore masks and also practiced social detachment, a hospital spokesman told CBS News via email. The space was closed to hospital visitors, they added.
The video showed the first lady removing her face cover to read the book, raising concerns that she had violated the hospital’s guidelines.
“All staff, families / carers and visitors must wear a mask at all times in a Children’s National facility to prevent the spread of COVID-19,” the website states.
The hospital spokesman told CBS News that the hospital’s website “does not include a mask policy for people who come to the hospital to give a speech.”
The First Lady followed our mask protocols for public speakers, which are based on DC Health’s guidelines, which state that wearing a mask is not mandatory when a person is speaking to broadcasts or an audience, provided that no one is within six feet of the speaker, ”the spokesman added.
The hospital said when Trump took off her mask for the lecture, she was “more than ten feet away from others in our four-story atrium.” The spokesperson confirmed that the first lady wore a mask for the remainder of her visit, adding that she did not visit any of the patient care areas.
Jacquelyn Martin / POOL / AFP via Getty Images
The lecture was broadcast via the hospital’s closed TV system, so that patients could listen in from their room, AP reports. After the reading, Trump participated in calling out numbers during a bingo game. The game is played twice a week, according to AP, to give the kids a mental reprieve from their condition.
“Ms. Trump is our deepest gratitude for joining every first lady since Bess Truman in bringing a holiday feeling to children who have been hospitalized who cannot be home during this special time of year,” said Dr. Kurt Newman, the hospital’s CEO, said, according to the AP.
The visit comes as the coronavirus continues to rage across the country. More than 300,000 According to data from Johns Hopkins University, Americans have now died from the corona virus. The country passed the grim milestone when the first Americans began receiving Pfizer’s newly authorized coronavirus vaccine.
The first lady has been busy preparing for the holiday and revealed it Christmas decorations of the White House 2020 and theme: “America the Beautiful” at the end of last month. The unveiling took place less than two months after secret June 2018 recordings were broadcast by CNN complaining about preparing for the White House vacation.
CBS News has not independently verified the admissions.