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MANCHESTER, NH / WILMINGTON, Delaware (Reuters) – With coronavirus cases in the United States at record highs, President Donald Trump on Sunday repeated his refrain that the nation is “turning around” on the pandemic, while the vice president Mike Pence went ahead with his campaign. despite positive tests for COVID-19 among several attendees.
Nine days before the Nov. 3 election in which Democrat Joe Biden challenges the Republican president, the White House cited Pence’s status as an “essential worker” as justification for his trip despite exposure to his chief of staff. cabinet, Marc Short. which tested positive on Saturday.
The United States recorded 84,244 new coronavirus cases on Friday and 79,852 cases Saturday, the nation’s largest daily totals since the start of a pandemic that has killed an estimated 225,000 Americans and left millions out of work.
While Pence was campaigning in North Carolina later Sunday, Trump addressed a rally at a New Hampshire airport.
“We are turning around, we are rounding up the turn, we have the vaccines, we have everything. Even without the vaccines, we are rounding the turn,” Trump told a cheering crowd of supporters, many of them without protective masks or watching. recommendations for social distancing. “It’s going to end. And you know who got it? I did. Can you believe it?”
While numerous COVID-19 vaccines are in development, none have been approved for use in the United States.
Several senior Pence advisers also tested positive for COVID-19, the White House chief of staff said.
It marked the latest coronavirus infections in the White House, which included Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, her son Barron, and numerous aides and associates.
The new infections offered a reminder of the way that Trump, who was hospitalized for three nights this month after contracting COVID-19, and those around him have downplayed advice from public health experts to wear masks and observe guidelines. of social distancing to stop COVID-19. transmission.
In addition to dominating the debate over campaign politics, with Trump insisting that the United States is “turning around” the crisis, while Biden has criticized the president’s disjointed response, the pandemic has changed the voting habits of Americans. , with 58.7 million votes already cast.
Trump is also scheduled to campaign in Maine on Sunday. Biden has no campaign events scheduled for Sunday. While Biden has a wide lead in national opinion polls, polls show closer contests in some of the states on the battlefield that could decide the outcome.
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows told reporters that White House doctors cleared Pence to travel after Short tested positive. Pence is scheduled to address rallies in Kinston, North Carolina, later on Sunday and in Hibbing, Minnesota, on Monday.
Devin O’Malley, a spokesman for the vice president, said Saturday night that Pence and his wife tested negative.
When asked on CNN’s “State of the Union” why Pence was not following the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidelines for quarantining himself for 14 days after said exposure, Meadows cited the Sunday the vice president’s status as “essential personnel.”
Meadows said Pence would continue to campaign and speak at rallies.
Biden’s running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, took four days off the campaign earlier this month after her communications director tested positive for COVID-19.
Speaking in Detroit while campaigning in the battlefield state of Michigan, Harris criticized Pence for continuing to travel, saying, “I should follow the guidelines.”
Trump has mocked Biden for wearing a protective mask.
‘A FREE SOCIETY’
When asked why the Trump campaign does not require people who attend rallies to wear masks, Meadows said the campaign offers masks to attendees, but “We live in a free society.”
“We are not going to control the pandemic. We are going to control the fact that we receive vaccines, therapies and other areas of mitigation,” Meadows added.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who contracted COVID-19 and was hospitalized for a week after spending several days in the White House without wearing a mask, said Sunday he was “surprised” that Pence continued to campaign.
“Everybody has to put the health of the people they are in contact with first,” Christie told ABC’s “This Week.”
Infectious disease expert Dr. Sandra Nelson, from Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, said it appeared that Pence would be at high risk of becoming infected and transmitting the infection.
“With multiple members of your office testing positive, this would be considered a work-based group. As long as there is a group like this, I would recommend that the entire office transition to remote work for 14 days,” Nelson said.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal and Ernest Scheyder; Additional reporting by Susan Heavey, Joe Shaw, Steve Holland, John Whitesides, and Trevor Hunnicutt; Written by Will Dunham; Editing by Scott Malone, Lisa Shumaker, and Daniel Wallis)
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