MANCHESTER, N.H./WILMINGTON, Del. (Reuters) – Vice President Mike Pence forged ahead with campaigning on Sunday despite a COVID-19 outbreak among his aides and President Donald Trump claimed progress as the United States set records for daily infections, prompting Democratic challenger Joe Biden to accuse Trump of surrendering to the pandemic.
With nine days to go before the Nov. 3 election in which Biden is facing the Republican president, the White House cited Pence’s status as an “essential worker” as justification for his campaign travel despite exposure to his chief of staff, Marc Short, who tested positive on Saturday.
Multiple senior aides to Pence also tested positive for COVID-19, the White House chief of staff said.
The United States in the past two days has registered its highest number of new COVID-19 cases – about 84,000 on Friday and about 79,900 on Saturday. The pandemic, which has killed about 225,000 people in the United States and left millions of Americans jobless, remains front and center in the presidential race.
While Pence was set to campaign in North Carolina later on Sunday, Trump addressed a rally at an airport in New Hampshire.
Even as the novel coronavirus surged in many parts of the United States, Trump told the rally: “There’s no nation in the world that’s recovered like we’ve recovered.”
“We are coming around, we’re rounding the turn, we have the vaccines, we have everything. Even without the vaccines, we’re rounding the turn,” Trump told cheering supporters, many not wearing protective masks or observing social-distancing recommendations. “It’s going to be over. And you know who got it? I did. Can you believe it?”
While numerous COVID-19 vaccines are being developed, none has been approved for use in the United States.
“We’re not going to control the pandemic. We are going to control the fact that we get vaccines, therapeutics and other mitigation areas,” White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows told CNN’s “State of the Union” program.
In a statement released by his campaign, Biden seized on those comments, saying Meadows “stunningly admitted this morning that the administration has given up on even trying to control this pandemic, that they’ve given up on their basic duty to protect the American people.”
