While several top officials head for quarantine, members of the White House have reported that President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence will not be kept apart because of the coronavirus.
Several White House staff members have tested positive for COVID-19, including a spokeswoman for Pence, a member of Trump’s valet team, and as many as 11 members of the Secret Service. Many other employees have entered quarantine because of those cases, but Trump and Pence will not be isolated from one another, according to a Sunday report from the New York Times.
Despite a COVID-19 outbreak within the White House, two officials told the newspaper that the president and vice president will continue to work together and will not be physically separating themselves over concerns that they could both be incapacitated by the coronavirus.
The plan for Trump and Pence differs from that of some White House coronavirus task force members who are quarantining, including Dr. Anthony Fauci and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Robert Redfield. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said he will enter a “modified” quarantine for 12 days after a “low risk” contact with one of the infected staff members. Redfield plans to spend 14 days in a self-quarantine.
Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn is also a few days into a self-imposed, two-week quarantine after coming into contact with Pence’s spokeswoman.
“It is scary to go to work,” White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation. “I think that I’d be a lot safer if I was sitting at home than I would be going to the West Wing.”
