Vice President Mike Pence explained why the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention erroneously announced that a woman was the first U.S. coronavirus victim.
During a Sunday interview on State of the Union, Pence was asked to explain why the CDC had identified the first U.S. victim of the coronavirus as a woman when the patient was actually a man from Washington state. The vice president, who was appointed by President Trump to lead the coronavirus task force, claimed the mistake was just a communications error.
“The CDC had briefed us speaking to officials in Washington state. And it was just a miscommunication,” Pence said. “It doesn’t lessen the tragedy at all. And again, our hearts go out to that man’s family and his friends in that community.”
The vice president continued, “The president tapped me to lead this coronavirus response, building on the great work our White House task force had been doing. We’ve added additional personnel. I’ve got one of the leading experts in infectious diseases who is gonna be my right arm at the White House joining me tomorrow morning, at the, in the West Wing.”
Pence argued that the public will be proud of the White House’s efforts against the coronavirus and maintained that the threat to the general population remains low. The coronavirus, also known as the COVID-19 virus, has infected more than 87,000 people globally and killed nearly 3,000 people, most of whom were in China, where the outbreak began in December.
