More White House staff working remotely Monday, official says
White House deputy press secretary Brian Morgenstern told reporters on Monday that more White House staff are working remotely Monday after a number of staff members, including press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and two other press officials, tested positive for the coronavirus.
"When a case is identified and people are -- think they may be potentially exposed, you step up the precautions. That's exactly what we've been advised to do by the health professionals, so that's what we're doing," he said.
Morgenstern would not directly say if the White House was having any second thoughts about how they've handled the COVID-19 precautions and claimed the administration has been following health professionals' recommendations.
"We've been in the pandemic now for many months. We know what to do when someone gets sick. It's we reassess, has anybody been in close contact, do they need to get another test, do they need to work remotely -- that's what we're seeing. Kayleigh's carrying it out, really being a perfect example of that right now," he said.
Asked why White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany hadn’t quarantined after having close contact with Hope Hicks, who tested positive last week, Morgenstern said the White House’s practice was only to quarantine if you were having “any symptoms or a positive test yourself.”
He denied the White House had been flouting COVID recommendations.
“We’ve been taking the precautions that we need to take,” he said. “That’s what we’re doing right now in response to changing circumstances,” he said.
Morgenstern declined to say how many people in the West Wing have tested positive for COVID-19.
-ABC News' Ben Gittleson
