White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said Sunday that the United States is "not going to control" the spread of COVID-19 at home, as infections continue to surge in the country.

Divine Ayong seals a test in a biohazard bag after collecting a sample Monday, Sept. 21, 2020, at The University of Texas at El Paso's Fox Fine Arts building in El Paso, Texas. (Photo: AP)

"We are not going to control the pandemic. We are going to control the fact that we get vaccines, therapeutics and other mitigation areas," Meadows said in an interview on CNN's "State of the Union."

"It is a contagious virus just like the flu," he said, adding that "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."

The United States has recorded more than 8,700,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases and over 225,700 deaths as of Tuesday morning, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.