U.S. President chief of staff Mark Meadows has been diagnosed with COVID, news reports disclosed late Friday night. Meadows is the latest official in Trump's administration to be infected with the disease, which is rising across the United States.
Meadows has been with Trump and the first family in the past few days, including spending time at campaign headquarters on two occasions this week. In addition to Meadows, at least four other West Wing staffers have caught the virus, lending further disquiet to an already-intense post-election White House. One of them is Nick Trainor, the president's state campaign chief.
The 61-year old Trump COS told people following Tuesday's election that he had been infected with the coronavirus, but it wasn't clear when he was first diagnosed, sources with knowledge of his health condition said. In the past, Meadows has appeared dubious of the pandemic mitigation measures. He has insisted on taking his face covering off before talking to members of the press during the outbreak.
A White House spokesperson declined to comment on Meadows diagnosis. The news comes as Trump remains in a fierce battle for reelection, with Democratic presidential aspirant Joe Biden widely seen winning the polls. Trump himself was hospitalized for the virus last month. His wife Melania and their son Barron also got infected.
Based on an internal government memo, the coronavirus has infected at least "34 White House staffers and other contacts" in October. Cases of infections continue to increase in the U.S. and across the globe.
In Europe, lockdowns have been reimposed for most parts of the region, while cases in the U.S. are registering new records and the country is now averaging over 94,000 infections per day -- twice the figure it had reported a month ago.
Since the pandemic broke out, over 9.7 million people in the U.S. have tested positive for coronavirus and around 236,064 have died.
Meadows drew flak from his colleagues for not updating better regarding the scope of the coronavirus outbreak at the White House. While it insisted it conducted contact tracing in the wake of the surge in infections, many officials said they felt that nobody showed any concern about how they would figure out how to proceed.
Trump has long undermined safety recommendations even from his own administration with regard to COVID protocols, including the proper wearing of face mask and physical distancing. He continued to spearhead major campaign rallies where most of his avid supporters packed close together and did not wear any face covering.
