Two people from New York who attended the AIPAC conference in the US capital have tested positive for Covid-19, raising the possibility that lawmakers in Washington DC were exposed to the potentially lethal contagion.
“At least” two conference-goers who came from Westchester County, New York have tested positive for the virus, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee said on Friday evening, adding that they’ve sent notice of this to the attendees, participants, speakers, administration staff and congressional offices.
AIPAC previously said that a group that traveled to the conference from New York “potentially” interacted with an individual carrying the illness beforehand. Almost two dozen cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed in New York state.
The conference held just outside of Washington on March 1-3 was attended by 18,000 people, including more than 3,600 students from campuses across the US, over two-thirds of Congress, as well as a number of attendees from abroad. The day after it concluded, Israel asked anyone who attended “international conferences abroad” to self-quarantine for 14 days, in the hope of containing the infection to 15 cases reported so far.
Most of the fatalities from the virus are among people with underlying medical conditions and the elderly – which would apply to many members of Congress.
Also on rt.com AIPAC conference-goers ‘potentially’ exposed to coronavirus, Israeli Health Ministry imposes self-quarantine on returneesVice President Mike Pence, who spoke at the conference, said he hadn’t heard of the coronavirus revelation when asked about it on Friday. Other speakers included Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, current Democrat presidential front-runner Joe Biden, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York).
DC health officials have not reported any confirmed coronavirus cases, but authorities in nearby Montgomery County, Maryland have already identified three. As of Friday morning, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had registered 164 total confirmed Covid-19 cases in 19 US states, including 11 fatalities – 10 in Washington state and one in California.
The novel coronavirus, designated Covid-19, first appeared in Wuhan, China in December last year. Most of the fatalities so far have been in China. The airborne pathogen has since managed to spread to Europe, the Middle East and the US despite strict quarantine measures.
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