It is the second known coronavirus infection in the White House - despite all precautions. The cases show how difficult Trump's longed-for reopening of the economy could be.
Washington (dpa) - After an employee of US President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence's press spokeswoman Katie Miller is now infected with the corona virus.
She is doing well and is looking forward to getting back to work soon, she wrote on Friday night (local time) on Twitter. Miller, who is married to Trump's influential advisor Stephen Miller, has most recently been in contact with the Vice President, journalists, and senior officials.
Food and Drug Administration chief Stephen Hahn began a two-week isolation phase because of his contact with Miller as a precaution, US media reported. A test at Hahn on Friday was negative, the news sites Politico and CNN reported. At an appointment on Thursday, for example, Miller was not wearing a face mask and was talking to journalists, the correspondent for the Las Vegas Review-Journal newspaper, which had been on site, reported. Pence also did not wear a mask at the appointment - contrary to the recommendation of the US health authority CDC, she continued.
Both Trump and Pence were tested again on Friday and were not infected with the novel corona virus, the White House said. Trump had previously made Miller's infection public: "It was tested recently and the test was negative and then it was tested positive for some reason today," Trump said at a meeting with Republican senators and MPs. Pence takes all necessary precautions, he said.
The White House spokeswoman, Kayleigh McEnany, said there were strict security measures in the government headquarters. The Secret Service, which is responsible, among other things, for protecting the president, has had 11 confirmed coronavirus cases, the New York Times reported. However, it remained unclear whether they were employees who were employed in the White House or elsewhere.
President Trump is pushing to lift the corona pandemic restrictions so people can get back to work and the economy recovers. Unemployment in the United States has skyrocketed recently - a few months before the presidential election. However, recent White House infections have shown how difficult Trump's return to normalization should be as the virus continues to spread across the country.
Pence visited the state of Iowa on Friday. Shortly before his departure from Washington, those employees who had most recently been in contact with Miller were withdrawn from the trip.
On Thursday, the White House announced that a Trump employee had been infected with the corona virus. The president has since been tested negative for the virus and in good health, a spokesman said. Trump himself said on Thursday that he had very little contact with the employee. The White House corona tests would now be done daily, not just weekly.
So far, according to Johns Hopkins University, nearly 1.3 million corona infections have been detected in the USA. This corresponded to approximately every third known infection with the novel pathogen Sars-CoV-2 worldwide. More than 77,000 people died in the United States.
Katie Miller's Twitter feed, English
Miller's Tweet, English
Article from the Las Vega Review-Journal, English
Politico to FDA chief, English
New York Times on Coronavirus infections in the White House and Secret Service, English