Vice President Mike Pence has pledged the full support of the Trump administration to Washington state officials as the coronavirus death toll there continues to mount
CAMP MURRAY, Wash. —
Vice President Mike Pence pledged the full support of the Trump administration to Washington state officials Thursday as the coronavirus death toll there continued to mount.
The state has been the hardest hit by the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S., with at least 70 confirmed infections and 11 dead. Most of those who died are residents of Life Care Center, a nursing home in Kirkland, a suburb east of Seattle. Researchers say the virus may have been circulating undetected for weeks.
“As the state of Washington, and the Seattle area in particular, deals with the coronavirus, we’re going to continue to make sure that you have the full support of every agency in the federal government,” Pence said after taking a tour of the state’s emergency response center. “We know you’re the front line.”
Pence also attended a roundtable meeting with Gov. Jay Inslee, members of Washington’s congressional delegation and local officials to discuss coordinating response to the outbreak.
The vice president heaped praise on Inslee, a Democrat who briefly sought the Democratic presidential nomination last year. “We have been working with your governor and with this team in a seamless way,” Pence said.
Earlier in the day, Pence met with 3M CEO Mike Roman and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz at the company’s global headquarters just outside Minneapolis. The company is a major manufacturer of masks being used to stem the spread of the virus.
At 3M, Pence called on Americans to refrain from buying masks unless they’re sick.
“I do have a word to the average American about how you can help as well,” Pence said. “Unless you are ill, you have no need to buy a mask.”
Surgeon General Jerome Adams echoed the same message from Washington as he spoke to Fox News ahead of a virus task force meeting at the White House, saying: “My advice to folks: Stop buying masks if you’re part of the general public. Leave them for the health care providers so they can take care of people who are sick.”
Asked whether there were enough coronavirus testing kits for Americans who wanted them, Pence responded, ”I think we are we are ready today but we want to be ready tomorrow.”
He acknowledged, “We don’t have enough tests today to meet what we anticipate will be the demand going forward.” However, he added, “we’ve made real progress on that in the last several days.”
The vice president has been tasked by President Donald Trump to coordinate the U.S. government’s response to the outbreak, which has put many U.S. communities on edge and scrambled global financial markets. The disease has killed 11 in the U.S. and infected dozens more.
Pence had been scheduled to hold campaign events in Minnesota and Wisconsin on Thursday but scrapped those plans to focus on the coronavirus response.
Pence has scaled back, but not ended, his political travel since he’s taken over as the head of the US response to the virus. In naming the VP to the post, rather than a subject matter ‘czar,’ some trade aides believe it allowed Trump to maintain his political travel during a crucial part of the election year, when he’s trying to take advantage of the Democratic field’s divisions to boost his campaign in November.
“Mike Pence is working 20 hours a day or more on this,” Trump said Thursday, as he participated in his first reelection town hall on Fox News.
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Associated Press writer Zeke Miller in Washington contributed reporting.