Secret Service agents test positive after Ariz. events
Secret Service agents who were preparing for Vice President Mike Pence’s visit to Phoenix earlier this week fell ill with COVID-19, as did agents working at the president’s rally eight days before, according to media reports.
CNN reported Friday that several agents working on the Pence visit got sick, as did several agents who became infected while getting ready for President Donald Trump’s June 23 event in Phoenix.
The crowd for Trump was mostly unmasked. The Washington Post reported Thursday that Pence’s visit to Arizona, originally scheduled for Tuesday, was postponed a day so that healthy agents could be available for his visit. The trip, which originally had called for public events, became a quick drop-in to support state officials battling a surge in COVID-19 cases.
Both news agencies cited unnamed sources. Secret Service agents are sworn to protect the president, vice president and other high-profile officials.
Agents also were on the ground in South Dakota preparing for Trump’s speech Friday at Mount Rushmore.
The agency issued a statement Friday night acknowledging issues with the coronavirus but provided little detail.
Catherine Milhoan, Secret Service director of communications, said, “To protect the privacy of our employees’ health information and for operational security, the Secret Service is not releasing how many of its employees have tested positive for COVID-19, nor how many of its employees were, or currently are, quarantined.
“As a matter of practice, the Secret Service does not comment on the means and methods used to carry out our protective operations. The men and women of the Secret Service continue to meet operational mission requirements without fail.”
The Secret Service has a field office in central Phoenix; its agents almost certainly were involved in preparations for the visits.
What happened during Pence’s visit?
Vice President Mike Pence arrived in Arizona Wednesday to meet with Gov. Doug Ducey amid a surge of COVID-19 cases that are taxing the state’s hospitals and health care workers and prompted the governor to again shut down gyms, bars, movie theaters, water parks, and other establishments in an effort to curb the spread of the new coronavirus.
Pence stepped off the plane, accompanied by Ducey, for a short visit in Arizona at 11:34 a.m. Both men were wearing masks. Pence and Ducey entered the Lincoln Ragsdale Executive Terminal at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport to discuss Arizona’s COVID-19 crisis.
At a physically distanced public briefing after meeting with public health and hospital officials, Pence said he was instructing the acting Homeland Security secretary to provide another 500 medical personnel, after Ducey’s request for extra help to combat the new coronavirus.
“We’re going to make sure Arizona has whatever it takes . ... We’re going to make sure every Arizonan impacted by the coronavirus has the health care that we would want any member of our family to have,” Pence said.
Trump returned for 3rd time in 2020
Trump’s June 23 visit to the state, his third in five months, underscored the state’s status as a battleground state in the presidential election.
In Phoenix, he spent fewer than 10 minutes of his 11⁄2 hour speech discussing the new coronavirus, and the crowd of about 3,000 supporters appeared similarly disinterested in dwelling on the pandemic.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends wearing face masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Both Maricopa County and Phoenix have enacted ordinances requiring masks in public places.
Most of the attendees who packed into Dream City Church in north Phoenix did not wear face coverings. Nor did any of the event speakers, including the president.
During his speech, the president repeatedly assured his crowd that the U.S. was at “the end of the pandemic.”
The president started his trip to the state with a visit to Yuma, where he held a roundtable discussion about border security with officials including Gov. Doug Ducey, U.S. Sen. Martha McSally and U.S. Rep. Debbie Lesko as well as Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf.