A new directive reflected the latest attempt at mitigation by an administration that has struggled to manage the deadly pandemic, including within the 18-acre White House compound.
Three days after a top aide to Vice President Pence tested positive for the deadly coronavirus — throwing President Trump and his team into an anxious frenzy — the White House made official for its employees what have long been prescribed for the public at large: masks.
A memo Monday instructed most White House officials to wear masks or face coverings in the West Wing, as well as avoid “unnecessary visits” there — directives to prevent the novel coronavirus from spreading further inside the presidential compound.
The request does not apply to staff members seated at their desks if they are “appropriately socially distanced,” and Trump is not expected to wear a mask in the White House, aides said. In a sign of the haphazard effort to impose more stringent safety standards inside the White House, one senior administration official and several other aides were still arguing that masks were unnecessary for people getting regular testing just moments before the memo was sent.
A Rose Garden news conference Monday aimed at announcing new money for testing provided a striking illustration of the uneven measures, as Trump presided over the event without a mask as everyone around him, from reporters to aides, wore them.
“In the case of me, I’m not close to anybody. . .. Obviously in my case, I’m very far away from everyone. But if you look at all of those people over there,” Trump said, pointing to staffers lined up at the West Wing Colonnade, “every one of them from what I can see, these are White House staffers, they’re White House representatives, they’re White House executives, and everybody has a mask on. Just about everybody I’ve seen today wore a mask.”
Monday’s directive reflected the latest attempt at mitigation by an administration that has struggled to manage the pandemic, including inside the 18-acre confines of the White House compound. Two officials — Trump’s military valet and Pence press secretary Katie Miller — have tested positive for the novel coronavirus so far in a workplace where the recommendations of the administration’s health officials have often been ignored.
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Trump has consistently declined to wear a mask and, until Monday, those around him have generally followed his lead. His news conferences before Monday’s were notable, in part, for how little social distancing administration officials exhibited.
Pence, who was exposed to his infected staffer, has declined to fully isolate himself, despite the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendation that people in close contact with someone who has the virus remain at home for 14 days to protect others.
A Pence spokesman said Sunday night that the vice president has continued to test negative and is following the advice of the White House Medical Unit but is not quarantining.
