Some State Department employees have tested positive for coronavirus – Pompeo

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivers remarks on the current state of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) during a news conference at the State Department in Washington, U.S., March 17, 2020. REUTERS/Tom Brenner

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A handful of U.S. State Department employees across the globe have tested positive for the new coronavirus, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Tuesday.

“We’ve had a couple of employees, you can count them on one hand, who have positive tests,” Pompeo said in a news briefing. “We’ve handled those exactly the way we’re asking every American to respond to those wherever they find themselves in the world.”

He gave no details on the precise number of State Department employees who have tested positive for the highly contagious virus, where they were based or whether they had returned to the United States. He noted that the State Department has already limited U.S. diplomats’ travel.

“We’ll continue to take care of our team, we will act in a way that’s consistent with the CDC’s (U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) guidelines and the professional medical staff who work here with the State Department,” he said.

Pompeo added that he felt “great,” though he did not say whether he had been tested for the coronavirus.

(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk, Writing by Daphne Psaledakis and Jonathan Landay, Editing by Franklin Paul and Paul Simao)

Leave a Reply