Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s plane was met by people wearing hazmat suits after he cut his Asia trip short on Wednesday due to a member of the press corps testing positive for COVID-19.
Blinken traveled to the U.K., Indonesia and Malaysia but skipped out on Thailand following the positive test. Both Blinken and his staff have routinely tested negative, including on Tuesday, but cancelled the end of the trip “out of an abundance of caution,” a State Department spokesperson noted according to Reuters. (RELATED: Blinken: China’s ‘Failure’ To Share Info About Virus Led To ‘Much More Egregious Results’)
“We learned this morning, through our routine PCR testing, that a member of our traveling press pool tested positive for COVID-19 upon arrival in Kuala Lumpur,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said in statement according to The Washington Post. “The individual who tested positive will remain in isolation, and we will continue to adhere to and go beyond CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] guidance, including with our rigorous testing protocol, for the remaining traveling party.”
Price noted that Blinken spoke with the foreign minister of Thailand about the decision to cut the trip short and “expressed his deep regret.” Blinken invited the foreign minister to Washington, D.C. as well.
The Washington Post’s John Hudson, one of the members of the press corps traveling with Blinken, documented the hazmat suit incident, tweeting on Wednesday that “these are the type of people who start approaching your plane after someone tests positive for corona in the secretary’s entourage.”
Update from Blinken’s plane: We just landed on our next stop. These are the type of people who start approaching your plane after someone tests positive for corona in the secretary’s entourage (photo by @humeyra_pamuk) pic.twitter.com/afbNi02zwO
— John Hudson (@John_Hudson) December 15, 2021
Blinken’s trip to Southeast Asia was aimed at strengthening relations in parts of the world where China has become more involved, Reuters noted. The decision to cut the trip short coincides with a rise in the Omicron variant around the world.