Pence’s press secretary tests positive for coronavirus

Vice President Mike Pence’s press secretary has tested positive for the coronavirus.

Katie Miller is the second person working at the White House complex and is known to have tested positive this week.

President Donald Trump, who publicly identified Ms. Miller, said he was “not concerned” about the spread of the virus at the White House.

However, officials said they were intensifying security protocols for the complex.

Pence’s spokeswoman Katie Miller, who tested positive on Friday, had been in recent contact with Pence but not the president.

She is married to Stephen Miller, one of Trump’s top advisers.

President Donald Trump’s White House adviser Stephen Miller with his wife Katie Miller (Patrick Semansky / AP)

Miller had tested negative on Thursday, the day before his positive result.

“That is why the whole concept of evidence is not necessarily great,” Trump said. “The tests are perfect, but something can happen between a test that is good and then something happens.”

The positive test for Pence’s chief aide came a day after White House officials confirmed that a member of the military serving as one of Trump’s valets had tested positive for Covid-19.

Six people who had been in contact with Ms. Miller were scheduled to fly Pence to Des Moines, Iowa, on Air Force Two on Friday. They were removed from the flight just before it took off, according to a senior administration official.

None of those people exhibited symptoms, but they were asked to step down so they could be tested “as a precaution,” a senior administration official told reporters. The six later tested negative, the White House said.

The official said staff in the west wing is regularly screened, but much of Mr. Pence’s staff, who work alongside in the Executive Office building, is performed less frequently. Ms. Miller was not on the plane and had not been scheduled to be on the trip.

White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said the administration was stepping up mitigation efforts already recommended by public health experts and taking other unspecified precautions to ensure the safety of the president.

Meadows said the White House was “probably the safest place to come,” but was reviewing additional steps to keep Trump and Pence safe.

The White House requires daily temperature checks of anyone entering the White House complex and has encouraged social distancing among those who work in the building.

Management has also conducted regular deep cleaning of all workspaces. Anyone approaching the President and Vice President is screened daily by Covid-19.

“We have already put in place some protocols that we are observing, obviously, to make sure that the president and his immediate staff are kept safe. But it’s not just the president, it’s all the workers that are here … on a daily basis,” Meadows said .

The Trump valet case marked the first known case in which a person who has approached the president tested positive as several people present at his private Florida club were diagnosed with Covid-19 in early March.