Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook,your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With Allie Bice. Send tips | Subscribe here| Email Alex | Email Max As Omicron began storming the country in December, the president and the vice president changed their own masking protocols. At the advice of their personal health advisers, they largely ditched the black surgical masks they previously sported and began wearing KN95’s weeks before the CDC updated their own masking guidance. The change reflects a dynamic within this White House — one that’s dictated everything from internal operations to the president’s travel schedule and could very well scuttle his ambitions to criss cross the country more this year. They’re terrified of JOE BIDEN getting Covid. Some current and former White House officials foresee a potential political and policy disaster if the president were to contract the virus, even though he is vaccinated and boosted. Covid protocol critics and vaccine skeptics would have a field day with Biden catching Covid and use it to further undermine trust in the administration’s efforts to combat the pandemic. The 79-year-old president would likely take at least a few days to recover—in addition to placing himself in quarantine—which could exacerbate concerns about his age and health. Aides’ fear of that scenario has prompted the White House to limit Biden’s travel and interactions with voters during his first year in office. That has frustrated Biden, who said last week that in 2022, “I’m going to get out of this place more often. I’m going to go out and talk to the public…I’m going to interface with them.” Similar limitations led to the “Biden in the basement” meme during the 2020 election, but also arguably helped Biden politically, as it portrayed him as taking the virus seriously compared to the more cavalier approach of one DONALD TRUMP. But attitudes around the pandemic have changed since then. And the same precautions have now made it more difficult to turn around his political prospects as president. It has also made it more difficult to showcase his talents as a grip-and-grin politician. Biden’s foreign and cross-country travel has also been curtailed, according to sources familiar with the planning. Despite the president’s desire to reorient foreign policy towards Asia, he has yet to visit the region in part because of Covid fears, according to current and former administration officials. His only two international trips — to Europe — came in June and October, when fears of Covid had ebbed in between waves of infections. The logistical challenges grow tremendously when he stays somewhere overnight, as they try to keep him in a Covid-safe bubble in a new environment. A White House official pushed back, telling us that, "We navigate and consider appropriate COVID protocols for all activities. COVID has not prevented travel from happening." Biden’s not the only world leader who has limited his movements because of the pandemic. Chinese President XI JINPING has not left his country for almosttwo years, opting to attend international meetings virtually. And even as the administration encourages vaccinated Americans to live their normal lives, Biden has not really done much socially outside the White House, attending only a few gatherings and eschewing even some of the local restaurants he frequented as vice president. SALLY QUINN, the writer and demiurge of the high-endWashington social circuit, told POLITICO that she’s not surprised about the Bidens’ absence from that universe. Although she said she didn’t want to reveal too much of her thinking because she’s working on a piece about the topic, Quinn pointed out that Biden is just the latest president to eskew an outside social life in favor of hunkering down in the White House. "Obviously it would be a disaster for him to get Covid,” she said. “But in the Trump years and the Obama years — we have no history of presidents going out. They don't do it anymore.” SEND YOUR HOT TAKE — We want to incorporate more of your feedback. Is there something we missed in today’s edition? Do you have a tip to share or a thought on our coverage? Send us an email or text and we will try to include your thoughts in the next day’s edition. Can be anonymous, on background, etc. Email us at westwingtips@politico.com or you can text/Signal Alex at 8183240098 or Max at 7143455427. Do you work in the Biden administration? Are you in touch with the White House? Are you MARY BETH CAHILL, senior advisor at the DNC? | 
