Vice president Mike Pence denied he’s self-quarantining after his press secretary tested positive for COVID-19, and said he’ll be at the White House on Monday.
CNN reports: “Pence spokesperson Devin O’Malley said the vice president ‘will continue to follow the advice of the White House Medical Unit and is not in quarantine.’ … The official said Pence’s schedule will probably be on the lighter side in the coming days, but that he’s not doing a full self-quarantine.”
NBC News adds: “Pence’s decision to stay ‘a little low key’over the weekend, as the official described it, came after his press secretary, Katie Miller, and one of President Donald Trump’s personal valets both tested positive for COVID-19 last week. The White House has ramped up testing from once a week to daily for administration officials, including Trump and Pence, both of whom White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said tested negative Friday.”
ABC News reports: “Secret Service agents close to the president and in the vicinity of the Oval Office will also begin wearing face masks, sources said. The Secret Service declined to comment Sunday night.”
The Washington Post‘s Greg Sargent looked at how the infection of White House staffers by coronavirus has befouled Trump’s plan to reopen the economy and exposed its hypocrisy: “Most palpably, it has revealed the sort of glaring double standard that’s catnip to political media: The White House is taking extensive steps to protect Trump and his top advisers with resources that are largely unavailable to the rest of us, in part due to his own dereliction. But new reporting about the White House’s handling of this points to something more fundamental. How will Trump persuade the country we are returning to a normalcy that makes it safe to resume economic activities when his own advisers are panicked about its invasion of their own spaces, even as they can protect themselves in a way we cannot?”
