Coronavirus US: White House chief of staff says ‘We’re not going to control the pandemic’

One of President Donald Trump’s top White House officials said on Sunday that the US government will not bring the Covid-19 pandemic under control, comments underscored by an outbreak among aides to Vice-President Mike Pence, who continues to attend election campaign events even as cases surge across the country.

“We‘re not going to control the pandemic. We are going to control the fact that we get vaccines therapeutics, and other mitigation areas,” White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said in a CNN interview, adding that the Trump administration will not be able to contain the illness “because it is a contagious virus just like the flu”.

“When we look at the number of cases increasing, what we have to do is make sure that we fight it with therapeutics and vaccines, take proper mitigation factors in terms of social distancing and masks when we can. And when we, when we look at this ... we’re going to defeat it because what we are, we’re Americans and we do that.”

Asked why Pence is attending rallies and not quarantining after the vice-president’s chief of staff Marc Short and at least four more aides or advisers to Trump’s deputy tested positive, Meadows argued that as an “essential” worker Pence is allowed to attend public events as long as he practices social distancing and wears a mask.

Guidelines set by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s call for essential workers who have had close contact with an infected person to wear a mask for 14 days “at all times while in the workplace”. Pence, who continues to fly on Air Force Two for more campaign events in US swing states, did not wear a mask at an outdoor rally he held in Tallahassee, Florida, on Saturday.

Pence’s spokesman Devin O’Malley told White House reporters on Sunday that both the vice-president and second lady Karen Pence had tested negative.