Mike Pence’s chief of employees Marc Brief checks optimistic for coronavirus

On Saturday night, information broke of one more coronavirus case cluster on the White Home — this one involving aides to Vice President Mike Pence. Pence himself was uncovered, however he doesn’t plan to let the outbreak get in the way in which of his campaigning.

In line with Maggie Haberman of the New York Occasions, at the least 5 folks in Pence’s orbit have examined optimistic for the virus, together with chief of employees Marc Brief, outdoors adviser Marty Obst, and three as of but unidentified White Home staffers who work with the vice chairman. Information of this newest group of circumstances — which isn’t the primary to have an effect on Pence’s inside circle — comes simply 4 weeks after the event of a White Home cluster that included greater than 30 confirmed circumstances, together with President Donald Trump.

Haberman reported that White Home officers tried to comb the most recent batch of optimistic checks below the rug:

The assertion [confirming the positive tests] didn’t come from the White Home medical unit, however as a substitute from a press aide. Two folks briefed on the matter stated that the White Home chief of employees, Mark Meadows, had sought to maintain information of the outbreak from changing into public.

Pence spokesman Devin O’Malley instructed Haberman that whereas Pence was certainly in shut contact with Brief (and due to this fact, based on the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, ought to quarantine for 14 days), he’s not planning to take action as a result of he examined destructive and is taken into account “important personnel.” Pence remains to be planning to forge forward with marketing campaign rallies in Kinston, North Carolina, on Sunday, and Hibbing, Minnesota, on Monday.

Throughout a CNN interview Sunday morning, Trump’s chief of employees Mark Meadows struggled to defend the choice to maintain Pence on the marketing campaign path regardless of his coronavirus publicity, and made a shocking admission — that the Trump administration has given up making an attempt to comprise the pandemic and has resorted to hoping for brand new therapies whereas relying on a profitable vaccine being out there quickly.

“We’re not going to regulate the pandemic,” Meadows stated, including later: “What we have to do is make sure that we have now the right mitigation elements … to ensure folks don’t die from this.”

The unhappy irony of this example is that Pence is chair of the White Home coronavirus process power, but his conduct has been a mannequin of what to not do to guard your self from the coronavirus.

Pence has steadfastly refused to put on a masks in public all through the pandemic, even at hospitals. He’s gone on Fox Information and paid lip service to CDC pointers by saying issues like “it’s all the time a good suggestion to put on a masks,” but he has not finished so at packed marketing campaign occasions the place folks visibly aren’t social distancing or sporting masks.

Pence has additionally put himself — and people round him — at risk by initiating bodily contact and making a mockery of social distancing pointers throughout mask-less occasions.

And this conduct has resulted in a number of exposures past his contact with Brief. On the Rose Backyard occasion on the White Home to introduce Supreme Court docket nominee Choose Amy Coney Barrett, which has been linked with quite a few coronavirus circumstances, a maskless Pence sat immediately in entrance of Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), who later examined optimistic for the coronavirus, and near first woman Melania Trump and former White Home adviser Kellyanne Conway, each of whom additionally examined optimistic.

That wasn’t even Pence’s solely attainable publicity to the coronavirus on that day. Earlier than the Rose Backyard occasion, Pence hung out at a packed prayer march with Pastor Greg Laurie, who examined optimistic for the coronavirus as effectively.

In his capability as head of the duty power, Pence has constantly misled the general public concerning the state of the pandemic, insisting the administration has finished a fantastic job and that the tip of the pandemic is true across the nook. Some folks might have purchased that in April and Might, but it surely’s turn into a more durable promote as new every day case numbers hit data in current days and hospitalizations have elevated by greater than 33 p.c over the past month.

Not solely is the White Home failing to guard the general public, it’s failing to guard itself

Information of the coronavirus cluster round Pence comes throughout a weekend when the US set data for probably the most new single-day coronavirus circumstances — round 83,000 on each Friday and Saturday. However you wouldn’t know this from listening to Pence or Trump, each of whom have made brazen lies concerning the state of the pandemic a staple of their stump speeches.

Pence’s resolution to maintain campaigning regardless of his coronavirus publicity doesn’t simply put his inside circle in danger — his rallies are additionally public well being hazards. USA In the present day reported on Friday that plenty of locations the place Trump held rallies in current weeks have subsequently skilled a spike in coronavirus circumstances.

The president has participated in almost three dozen rallies since mid-August, all however two at airport hangars. A USA TODAY evaluation exhibits COVID-19 circumstances grew at a quicker price than earlier than after at the least 5 of these rallies within the following counties: Blue Earth, Minnesota; Lackawanna, Pennsylvania; Marathon, Wisconsin; Dauphin, Pennsylvania; and Beltrami, Minnesota.

Collectively, these counties noticed 1,500 extra new circumstances within the two weeks following Trump’s rallies than the 2 weeks earlier than – 9,647 circumstances, up from 8,069.

Because of this not solely is the White Home not defending the American public from a pandemic that has now killed greater than 220,000 People, but it surely’s actively making issues worse. And by failing to guard high officers like Trump and Pence, the Trump administration is demonstrating that it may possibly’t even defend itself.

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