The White House chief of staff said on Sunday that the US is “not going to control” the coronavirus pandemic.

“We are not going to control the pandemic. We are going to control the fact that we get vaccines, therapeutics and other mitigation areas,” said Mark Meadows at CNN’s State of the Union.

The official’s statement came as the country witnessed the second-highest surge in coronavirus. 

The US recorded 83,718 new virus cases on Saturday, which was just 39 short of the all-time record, registered a day earlier, as per the tally of Johns Hopkins University.

On being asked why the US isn’t going to get the pandemic under control, Meadows said, “Because it is a contagious virus just like the flu.”

“What we need to do is make sure that we have the proper mitigation factors, whether it’s therapies or vaccines or treatments to make sure that people don’t die from this,” he added.

Meadow’s comments come at a time when the White House is hit by the coronavirus, for a second time. Several people in Vice President Mike Pence‘s inner circle, including his Marc Short, have contracted the virus. 

The US is the worst-hit nation by the pandemic with over 8.5 million cases and 224,906 deaths.