What the New Yorker feature story does emphasize
is the way things went down
once the Bidens actually got into the door at the White House.

Never before, in presidential history,
had a newly arrived President, with the First Lady,
sought out the entire assembly of staffpersons the minute they got in the door
in order to greet them all in person.
The article says that one of the longtime staffers,
telling the reporter about the occasion,
broke down and wept.

Also in the article:
when the Trumps bade farewell to the White House staff,
the staff, following instructions,
all crammed into a single room with no social distancing
for the moment of the departure.
As soon as the Biden transition went into effect,
the staff put on their facemasks
and arranged themselves with social distancing,
which definitely took more than a single room
and if I recall the article right,
spread down the length of at least one hallway.

And the Bidens made a point of following
that line of socially-distanced White House staff.

The article also touches on COVID-19
reporting that some of the staff
came down with COVID-19 despite their best efforts,
because there was no consistent direction or leadership
from the top about protocols on the job.

Interesting, though, that one staff representative
says of Timothy Harlech that
of the chief ushers since President Obama's administration,
Harlech was the one who seemed to care the most about the staff.