Vice-president Mike Pence’s press secretary tested positive for the coronavirus, the White House said Friday, making her the second person who works at the White House complex known to test positive for the virus this week.
Katie Miller is married to Stephen Miller, a top Trump advisor. She has been in recent contact with Pence but not with the president. The White House had no immediate comment on whether Stephen Miller had been tested or if he was still working out of the White House.
Katie Miller had tested negative on Thursday. A senior White House official said staff in the West Wing are tested regularly but much of Pence’s staff, which works next door in the Executive Office building, are tested less frequently.
Trump said he was “not worried” about the virus spreading in the White House. Regardless, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said the administration was stepping up mitigation efforts already recommended by public health experts and taking other unspecified precautions to ensure the safety of the president. The president and vice-president will now be tested daily, as well as some staffers who closely interact with Trump.
One of Trump’s personal valets tested positive for Covid-19 earlier this week. The case marked the first known instance where a person who has come in close proximity to the president has tested positive since several people present at his private Florida club were diagnosed with Covid-19 in early March.
Also on Friday, a trove of international emails obtained by the Associated Press appeared to show that the decision to shelve detailed advice from the nation’s top disease control experts for reopening communities during the coronavirus pandemic came from the highest levels of the White House.
The document, titled Guidance for Implementing the Opening Up America Again Framework, was researched and written to help faith leaders, business owners, educators and state and local officials as they begin to reopen. It included detailed “decision trees,” or flow charts aimed at helping local leaders navigate the difficult decision of whether to reopen or remain closed.
This new CDC guidance – a mix of advice already released along with newer information – had been approved and promoted by the highest levels of its leadership, including Robert Redfield, the CDC director. Despite this, the administration shelved it on 30 April.
According to the documents, the CDC continued inquiring for days about the guidance that officials had hoped to post by 1 May, the day Trump had targeted for reopening some businesses, according to a source who was granted anonymity because they were not permitted to speak to the press.
White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said Friday that the documents had not been approved by Redfield. The new emails, however, show that Redfield cleared the guidance.
The files also show that after the news service first reported that the guidance document had been buried, the Trump administration ordered key parts of it to be fast-tracked for approval.
The White House called the CDC and ordered them to refile all of the decision trees, except one that targeted churches. An email obtained by the AP confirmed the agency resent the documents late Thursday, hours after news broke.
“Attached per the request from earlier today are the decision trees previously submitted to both OIRA and the WH Task Force, minus the communities of faith tree,” read the email. “Please let us know if/when/how we are able to proceed from here.”
Guardian staff contributed reporting