The world’s leading diplomacy chief Mike Pompeo has quarantined himself after contact with someone infected with COVID-19, the US State Department said on Wednesday.
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“The secretary of state has been tested and is negative,” a spokesman for US diplomacy said in a statement to the media.
But “he has been identified as having had contact with a person who tested positive for the virus”, whose identity is not revealed out of respect for “his private life”, said the spokesperson.
In accordance with the recommendations of the health authorities, Mike Pompeo “will be in quarantine” and “closely watched by the medical team of the Department of State”, he added.
The Secretary of State is the most important minister in the United States government, and fourth in succession to the President of the United States in the event of resignation, removal or death.
The US executive has already been affected by many cases of coronavirus, including the White House, where President Donald Trump himself has tested positive and had to be hospitalized for three days in early October in the midst of the election campaign for the November 3, finally lost to Democrat Joe Biden.
Several members of his family or counselor were also diagnosed positive, so much so that the presidency was identified at that time as a real source of contamination.
Donald Trump has repeatedly downplayed the severity of the pandemic and only wore and encouraged the mask reluctantly.
Mike Pompeo appears to him most often masked when he travels abroad.