‘We’ll get through this’: Pence says ‘no question’ there will be more coronavirus cases, but ‘we’re ready’
Vice President Mike Pence said Sunday it is certain that additional people in the United States will contract the new coronavirus spreading rapidly across the globe, but he said the risk to the average American remains low and the government is doing “everything possible to prevent the spread.”
“There will be more cases. There’s no question,” Pence said on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.” But he said “the vast majority of any American that would contract a coronavirus will, will be treated, they will recover.”
President Donald Trump has put Pence in charge of a task force charged with coordinating the government’s response to the outbreak. Pence stressed that the administration was taking “a whole of government approach.”
“I’ll have one of the most renowned experts in infectious diseases literally joining my staff in the West Wing tomorrow. We’re going to bring the best scientific minds, experts together,” Pence said, “We’re going to work every day to, to contain this disease, to treat those that are contracted.”
“I’m very confident we’re ready,” he said, “And I know that we’ll get through this.”
Globally, there are more than 86,000 confirmed cases of the COVID-19 coronavirus and nearly 3,000 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering. In the U.S., there are 71 confirmed cases, and the first death was reported after a man died from the illness in Washington state.
“It’s a tragic loss, and the man passed away,” Pence said. “He was an individual we believe in his late 50s that, that also had some other high-risk factors, but it doesn’t take away from the tragedy.”
Pence said that of the confirmed cases in the U.S., “the majority of them are recovering well” and “four remain in serious condition.” He said he will keep all of those affected by the disease “in our prayers.”
During an appearance on “Fox News Sunday,” Heath and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar confirmed said the man who died of the illness had been living in a nursing home where there have been additional cases.
“At this point we do not know how this gentleman contracted the illness,” Azar said. He said the man died in a hospital where “the nursing home sends patients.”
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“There are cases in that nursing home also. So right now there’s a large investigation going on in the nursing home, the hospital, contact tracing to try to determine where that disease was introduced and how it might have spread,” Azar said.
Like Pence, Azar said the illness would continue to spread.
“We’ve been very clear from the outset we’re going to have more cases here in the United States in spite of the president’s aggressive efforts at containment We’ll see more cases. We’ll see some forms of community spreading,” he said.
“But the risk to any individual American remains low. Thanks to the efforts the president has taken, they stay low. We’re working to keep it that way,” Azar added. “But things can change rapidly.”
Pence and Azar praised the president’s response to the virus and his decision to restrict travel from countries where the outbreak has been widespread. But critics have said the administration was slow to provide the needed resources and accused the president of initially trying to downplay the severity of the outbreak.
Azar said Trump was “trying to keep balance in messaging so that the American people don’t engage in unwarranted panic.”
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Several of the president’s supporters have accused Democrats of politicizing the disease to hurt Trump, who himself accused the Democrats of creating a coronavirus “hoax.”
Conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh said the virus was nothing but the “common cold” and that Democrats were exaggerating the risk it poses to “weaponize” it against Trump. And the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., said Democrats “hope that it comes here and kills millions of people so that they could end Donald Trump’s streak of winning.”
Pence defended those comments as legitimate reactions to “irresponsible rhetoric among Democrats and commentators.” When pressed to offer examples of that rhetoric, Pence was only able to cite a New York Times op-ed from liberal columnist Gail Collins who suggested last week that the disease should be dubbed the “Trumpvirus.”
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‘When you see voices on our side pushing back on outrageous and irresponsible rhetoric on the other side, I think that’s important, and I think it’s justified,” Pence said.
“Washington D.C. has just become reflexively critical of this president at every turn,” Pence said. “The opposition to this president for the last three years has been unprecedented in my lifetime.”
Though Pence defended the remarks from the president and his defenders, he said, “This is no time for politics.”
“Our administration are going to continue to stay focused on the health and safety of the American people.”
