Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is canceling a plan to host senior Western diplomats for a major diplomatic conference in Pittsburgh due to the worsening coronavirus outbreak.
“Out of an abundance of caution, the United States has decided to host the upcoming G-7 ministerial virtually, by video teleconference,” State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus announced Wednesday. The conference of the foreign ministers of the world’s largest industrialized democracies (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom) — is scheduled for March 24-25.
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The decision came as the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic, more than two months after Chinese officials belatedly confirmed that a mysterious infectious disease had emerged in the city of Wuhan.
“We will see more cases, and things will get worse than they are right now,” National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci said during a congressional hearing on Wednesday. “How much worse they get will depend on our ability to do two things: to contain the influx of people who are infected coming from the outside, and the ability to contain and mitigate within our own country. Bottom line, it’s going to get worse.”
The responsibility for hosting the Group of Seven rotates among the member states. President Trump is scheduled to convene the G-7 leaders at Camp David in June.
“We thank the city of Pittsburgh for its willingness to host this year’s G-7 ministerial and for the support and assistance planning this year’s event,” Ortagus said. “We look forward to holding future events there.”
