US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo leaves the White House after visiting with family on December 11, 2020, in Washington. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP)
WASHINGTON — America’s top diplomat Mike Pompeo was in quarantine Wednesday after being exposed to a person who has tested positive for COVID-19, the State Department said.
The 56-year-old US secretary of state “has been tested and is negative,” it said in a statement.
“In accordance with CDC guidelines, he will be in quarantine,” the State Department said. “He is being closely monitored by the Department’s medical team.”
The State Department said that for privacy reasons it was not identifying the person Pompeo came into contact with.
The secretary of state is fourth in the line of succession after the president following the vice president, speaker of the House of Representatives and president pro tempore of the Senate.
Get The Times of Israel's Daily Editionby email and never miss our top stories
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks as US President Donald Trump announces that Sudan will normalize relations with Israel at the White House in Washington, on October 23, 2020.(Alex Edelman/AFP)
US President Donald Trump was hospitalized for three days in October after contracting COVID-19. His wife, Melania, and son Barron, also caught the disease.
While Trump frequently appeared in public without a facemask, Pompeo generally wore one during his foreign trips.
Pompeo and his wife, Susan, hosted a holiday party on Tuesday for the families of US diplomats serving overseas.
Advertisement
According to The Washington Post, Pompeo had been scheduled to speak at the event but canceled his speech.
The newspaper said more than 900 invitations were issued for the reception but fewer than 70 people showed up for the indoor event.
US health authorities have discouraged large indoor gatherings amid the coronavirus pandemic, which has left more than 300,000 people dead in the United States.
We can't do this work alone.
The war with Iran has been draining for all of us in Israel. But when I heard about a high casualty incident – ballistic missile impacts in Arad and Dimona that left nearly 200 people wounded – I drank a cup of coffee, packed a bag, and headed south.
There, I spoke with Shilgit, the head of an after-school program for underprivileged youth. Standing outside her destroyed center, Shilgit said it was a miracle that no children were hurt and spoke about the community coming together in the hours since.
As a Times of Israel reporter, I’m committed to telling stories of resilience like Shilgit’s. But my colleagues and I can't do this alone. If you value work like this,please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. Your financial support is essential to keep real human reporting like this going.
We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.
That’s why we started the Times of Israel - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
Thank you, David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel
