San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
VIRUS SURGE SHADOWS CAMPAIGN EVENTS
Trump, Biden rally voters; Pence’s top aide tests positive
President Donald Trump assured supporters packed shoulder to shoulder at a trio of rallies Saturday that “we’re rounding the turn” on the coronavirus — despite spiking cases — and mocked challenger Joe Biden for raising alarms about the pandemic. Meanwhile, Biden bemoaned to a smaller gathering the need to campaign at a distance but said he understood the public health reasons behind it.
With coronavirus infections reaching their highest peak of the pandemic just as the election headed into the home stretch, Trump and Biden took starkly different approaches to the public health crisis in appealing for votes in battleground states.
Underscoring that difference, Vice President Mike Pence’s office announced he would continue with his aggressive campaign schedule after his chief of staff, Marc Short, tested positive for the coronavirus Saturday — even though Pence is considered a “close contact” under Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.
Pence spokesman Devin O’malley said Pence and his wife, Karen Pence, both tested negative for the virus on Saturday “and remain in good health.”
“We don’t want to become superspreaders,” Biden told supporters at a “drive-in“rally Saturday in Bucks County, Pa., picking up a term that has been used to describe the Rose Garden event in late September
in which Trump announced his latest Supreme Court nominee. More than two dozen people linked to the White House have contracted COVID-19 since that gathering, as have campaign aides.
The former vice president pressed his case that Trump was showing dangerous indifference to the surging virus on a day he looked to boost his candidacy with the star power of rock legend Jon Bon Jovi, who performed before Biden took the stage at a second drivein rally in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania.
Meanwhile, in Lumberton, N.C., his tongue firmly in cheek, Trump called Biden “an inspiring guy” for raising alarm about the pandemic. The president said that he watched Biden’s Bucks County rally as he flew to North Carolina and sarcastically observed that it appeared attendees, who were in their cars, weren’t properly socially distancing.
Trump at his rallies repeatedly criticized the news media for focusing on the virus, which has killed about 224,000 people in the United States and more than 1 million across the globe.
“It’s always cases, cases, cases. They don’t talk about deaths,” Trump complained to a crowd of several thousand at an outdoor rally in Circleville Ohio, where few wore masks even as they stood and sat shoulder to shoulder. “They’re trying to scare everybody,” he said.
Earlier, at a rally in North
Carolina, Trump questioned the value of testing, taking a stance in opposition to public health experts across the globe.
“You know why we have cases?” Trump asked. “’Cause we test so much. And in many ways, it’s good. And in many ways, it’s foolish. In many ways, OK? In many ways it’s very foolish.”
The rise in coronavirus cases is an ominous sign the disease still has a firm grip on the nation that has more confirmed virus-related deaths and infections than any other in the world. Many states say hospitals are running out of space in areas where the pandemic seemed remote only months ago. And in addition to the spike in cases, in many parts of the country, the percentage of people who are testing positive for COVID-19 is up as well.
Biden in his stop in Luzerne reminded supporters that Trump had suggested the COVID-19 mortality rate was lower outside predominantly Democratic states.
“Where does this guy come from?“Biden said.
Biden’s focus on Pennsylvania, one of the election’s most competitive battleground states, highlights the decisive role it could play Nov. 3.