PITTSBURGH — Paul Mango has had a good reason for not being home for the past five months. The deputy chief of staff for policy at the Department of Health and Human Services has been in the eye of the storm of the White House response to the COVID-19 pandemic, but that does not mean he hasn’t missed it here.

“I miss spending time in western Pennsylvania,” he said of his hometown of 32 years in suburban Pine Township, “I still have a 16-year-old and my wife of 40 years living here, and I have only seen them five times since Christmas. That’s why I was eager to get home.”