An aide to US Vice President Mike Pence tested positive with coronavirus on Friday, according to a senior administration official.
This is the third known case of a White House staffer testing positive with coronavirus. A day earlier a military aide to President Donald Trump had tested positive.
This morning we had someone on the vice president's staff test positive and so out of an abundance of caution we went back and looked into all the person's contacts most recently, said the senior administration official as the Vice President left Des Moines in Iowa.
"...That's why we asked some of our staff to deplane. Nobody else was exhibiting any symptoms or having any feeling of sickness. We asked them to go get tested and to go home out of an abundance of caution," the official said.
Staff in West Wing are tested regularly but people in Executive Office Building, which is also part of the White House complex, are not tested so frequently, he said. About 10 members of vice-presidential staff are tested daily.
"The person who tested positive was not on the plane and not scheduled to be on the trip," said the official. That's why we were delayed and taking care of that," the official added.
According to the official, the vice president and the president have not had contact with this person recently.
Pence was tested this morning and is tested daily. The aide who tested positive Friday had possibly been in contact with six people scheduled to fly.
They were removed from the flight, the official said.
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