US Vice President Mike Pence chose not to wear a face mask during a tour of the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, an apparent violation of the world-renowned medical centre’s policy requiring them.
According to the video feeds, Pence did not wear a mask when he met with a Mayo employee who has recovered from COVID-19 and is now donating plasma, even though everyone else in the room appeared to be wearing one. He was also maskless when he visited a lab where Mayo conducts coronavirus tests.
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The Vice President was the only participant not to wear a mask during a roundtable discussion on Mayo’s coronavirus testing and research programs.
Taking to Twitter, Mayo said that it had informed the Pence of its mask policy prior to his arrival.
The United States cases of the novel coronavirus topped 1 million on Tuesday, having doubled in 18 days, and making up one-third of all infections in the world, according to a Reuters tally.
More than 56,500 Americans have died of the highly contagious respiratory illness Covid-19 caused by the virus, an average of about 2,000 a day this month, according to the tally.
Globally, coronavirus cases top 3 million since the outbreak began in China late last year.
The United States, with the world’s third-largest population, has five times as many cases as the next hardest-hit countries of Italy, Spain and France.
