Meadows defends Pence still working amid infected aides
Officials on Sunday scoffed at the notion of dialing back in-person campaigning despite positive tests from several aides to Vice President Mike Pence, who leads the White House coronavirus task force.
White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, pressed to explain why the pandemic cannot be reined in, said, “Because it is a contagious virus just like the flu.” He told CNN’s “State of the Union” that the government was focused on getting effective therapeutics and vaccines to market.
Pence, who tested negative Sunday, according to his office, held a rally in North Carolina, while the president held one in New Hampshire and visited an orchard in Maine, where he signed autographs and assured a crush of mostly unmasked supporters that a “red wave” was coming Nov. 3.
Democrat Joe Biden attended church and planned to participate in a virtual get-out-the-vote concert Sunday night. He said in a statement that Meadows was effectively waving “the white flag of defeat” and “a candid acknowledgment of what President Trump’s strategy has clearly been from the beginning of this crisis.”
In a brief exchange with reporters before the orchard visit, Trump demurred when asked if Pence should step off the campaign trail as a precaution. “You’d have to ask him,” Trump said.
The White House said none of the staff traveling with Trump on Sunday had been in close contact with any individuals in the vice president’s office who had tested positive. But public health experts said that Pence’s decision to keep up in-person campaigning was flouting common sense.
“If Pence did not self-quarantine it would violate every core public health principle his own task force recommends,” said Lawrence Gostin, a public health expert at Georgetown University school of law.
Over 8.6 million Americans have contracted the coronavirus since the pandemic began, and more than 225,000 have died, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
Entering the final full week before the election, the Trump team remains committed to full-throttle campaigning. Trump has resumed a hectic schedule since recovering from his own recent coronavirus case, and planned to campaign Monday in Pennsylvania. Pence will campaign in Minnesota that day and return to North Carolina on Tuesday.
Despite the rising virus numbers, the White House says the U.S. economy needs to fully reopen and it has tried to counter Biden’s criticism that Trump is not doing enough to contain the worst U.S. public health crisis in more than a century.
Trump and his aides again Sunday lashed out at Biden, falsely asserting Biden was determined to lock down the economy, while the president is centering his attention on getting therapies and vaccines to market.
“We want normal life to resume,” Trump said. “We just want normal life.”
Biden has said he would only shut down the country if that is what government scientists advise. He has said that if elected he would make the case for why a national mask mandate might be necessary and would go to the governors to help increase Americans’ mask-wearing.
Pence’s office says there are no plans to curtail campaigning. In addition to chief of staff Marc Short, who tested positive Saturday, a “couple” other aides also have also contracted the disease, Meadows said.
Meadows said Pence will wear a mask — “because the doctors have advised him to do that” — but take it off when he gives a speech.
Even with Pence’s latest negative test, symptoms, including fever, cough and fatigue, may appear two to 14 days after exposure to the virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Some asymptomatic individuals test positive two to three days before developing symptoms.
The White House said Pence was considered in “close contact” with Short under CDC guidelines. The guidelines require that essential workers exposed to someone with the coronavirus closely monitor for symptoms of COVID-19 and wear a mask whenever around other people.
After consulting with the White House Medical Unit, Pence intended to maintain his schedule “in accordance with the CDC guidelines for essential personnel,” said Devin O’Malley, a Pence spokesman.
Meadows sidestepped questions about whether Pence’s campaigning fit into the spirit of guidelines for essential work. “He’s not just campaigning, he’s working,” Meadows said.
“We’re not going to control the pandemic. We are going to control the fact that we get vaccines, therapeutics and other mitigation areas,” Meadows said on CNN. He added: “We are making efforts to contain it.”
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