- CDC Director Robert Redfield is self-quarantining after coming into contact with someone at the White House who tested positive for COVID-19, The Washington Post reported.
- Redfield had a "low-risk exposure" on Wednesday but is "feeling fine, and has no symptoms," a CDC spokesperson said. "He will be teleworking for the next two weeks."
- Officials did not identify the person Redfield came into contact with.
- Earlier this week, it surfaced that three people in the White House or close to President Trump's family tested positive for the virus: Trump's valet, Vice President Mike Pence's press secretary, and Ivanka Trump's personal assistant.
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Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), is self-quarantining after coming into contact with someone at the White House who tested positive for the novel coronavirus, The Washington Post reported Saturday.
Redfield "had a low-risk exposure" on Wednesday to "a person at the White House who has COVID-19," a CDC spokesperson told The Post. "He is feeling fine, and has no symptoms. He will be teleworking for the next two weeks."
The spokesperson told CNN that if Redfield has to go to the White House as part of his responsibilities as a member of the coronavirus task force, "he will follow the safety practices set out by the CDC for those who may have been exposed."
"Those guidelines call for Dr. Redfield and anyone working on the Task Force at the White House to have their temperature taken and screened for symptoms each day, wear a face covering, and distance themselves from others," the spokesperson said.
Officials did not identify the person at the White House Redfield came into contact with.
Earlier this week, one of President Donald Trump's Oval Office valets tested positive for the virus. On Friday, news surfaced that Katie Miller, Vice President Mike Pence's press secretary and the wife of White House adviser Stephen Miller, tested positive.
And on Friday evening, CNN reported that Ivanka Trump's personal assistant had also tested positive.
The White House told CNN that Trump and Pence were tested again as a precaution, and that both tested negative. They are tested weekly with Abbott rapid result test devices. Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, also tested negative as of Friday.
Trump and Pence have both drawn sharp backlash for not following the White House's own directive to wear masks when going out in public.
Pence made headlines last week when he violated the Mayo Clinic's policy by not wearing a mask while visiting patients at the hospital.
The Mayo Clinic tweeted but later deleted a message saying it "informed" Pence about its face-mask policy before his visit. Politico also reported that a Mayo Clinic representative said it had communicated the policy to Pence and his staff.
Trump, meanwhile, has never worn a mask in public and has been quoted as saying that wearing one would "send the wrong message."
He was criticized earlier this week for failing to wear one while visiting a Honeywell plant in Arizona, and the Associated Press reported that the president doesn't want to wear a mask because he's afraid he'll look ridiculous and that it will harm his reelection chances.
The US is currently the global epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, which the World Health Organization declared a pandemic in March. To date, 4,018,342 people around the world have been infected and 278,756 have died. The US accounts for more than 25% of total cases, with 1,307,676 confirmed cases and 78,693 deaths.
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