Pence is safe, staffer ‘scared’ to go to WH

DEATHS IN THE US WENT UP BY 731 OVER THE LAST 24 HOURS, IN WHAT IS POSSIBLY THE LOWEST SINGLE-DAY TOLL IN WEEKS, TO 79,531; AND INFECTIONS WENT UP BY 19,710 TO 1.32 MILLION

Vice-president Mike Pence is fine and will be at work Monday, his spokesman has said squashing reports he is in self-quarantine after a close aide tested positive.

But the White House, America’s safest workplace, has become a “scary” place to work after recent infections, a senior official has acknowledged.

“Vice President Pence will continue to follow the advice of the White House Medical Unit and is not in quarantine,” Devin O’malley said in a statement.

But with two staffers testing positive for Covid-19 recently and three top members of President Donald Trump’s coronavirus task force going into selfquarantine after contacts with one on them, the White House may not look as safe as it ought to be, with all the resources available to it.

“It is scary to go to work,” Kevin Hassett, a top economic adviser to the president who works in the White House, said on the CBS Sunday.

On CNN, Hassett described his workplace, the West Wing that houses the president’s office and all his senior aides, as something that “with even all the testing in the world and the best medical team on Earth, is a relatively crammed place”.

731 DEATHS IN 24 HOURS Large parts of America are gearing up to reopen or have reopened as the rise in infections and fatalities continued to slow down. Deaths went up by 731 over the last 24 hours, in what is possibly the lowest single-day toll in weeks, to 79,531; and infections went up by 19,710 to 1.32 million.