Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday and will spend this week quarantining after interacting with a family member who tested positive for COVID-19.
“The CNO Admiral Gilday had contact with a COVID positive family member and, although testing negative, will be quarantining this week,” a DoD spokesman said in a statement.
Although Chief of the National Guard Bureau Air Force Gen. Joseph Lengyel tested positive for COVID-19 on Saturday, the spokesman said that a subsequent test later that day came back negative. Lengyel tested negative again on Monday.
“Thank you to all who have expressed concern for my health and safety,” Lengyel said in a statement Monday. “I am happy to continue to focus on the efforts of the 46,000 guardsmen and women who are battling this pandemic in the 50 states, three territories and District of Columbia.”
Reuters reports both Gilday and Lengyel were absent from a White House meeting on Saturday with President Donald Trump and other members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
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In addition to one of Trump’s personal valets, Vice President Mike Pence’s press secretary has tested positive for COVID-19 — prompting several members of the White House’s coronavirus task force to self-quarantine.
As a result, White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett claimed it was intimidating working at the White House as the virus spreads.
“It is scary to go to work,” Hassett told CBS’s “Face The Nation” on Sunday.
“I think that I’d be a lot safer if I was sitting at home than I would be going to the West Wing,” Hasset said.
