President elect Biden who is using Zoom to oversee his plans to assume power will be entering a no-Zoom zone at the White House. Just a one sign of the challenges his new administration will face when it moves to Washington in the midst of a pandemic. Three blocks from the White House, office space for more than 500 Biden transition staffers sits mostly idle. The government is shipping out laptops so staffers can work from home. President-elect Joe Biden, surrounded by just a handful of aides in Delaware.
White House computers don't allow the popular video conference software Zoom or rival systems like Google Meet and Slack. Government-issue cellphones possess only texting capabilities a few years ago. And many employees will need to be present at the White House to access classified information. The lack of in-person coordination could pose an additional challenge to the new government facing a multitude of crises.
As complicating matters, the Biden team must develop health and safety protocols from bottom of the line. The Trump administration was, at best, a cautionary tale in how not to run a workplace during a pandemic. The sources say there will be a top-to-bottom cleaning of the West Wing in the hours after Trump vacates the premises and before Biden's team moves in. Public health experts say it''s crucial that extra steps be taken to control the spread of the disease during that changeover.
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