While greeting cadets from Sarasota Military Academy, Vice President Mike Pence came into contact with cadets whose fellow classmate may have contracted the coronavirus.
On Friday, Pence traveled to Sarasota to attend a fundraiser for Rep. Vern Buchanan. Several senior cadets from the academy were in attendance. The students met the vice president, shook hands, and snapped a group photograph documenting the exchange.
The Herald-Tribune reported on Monday that a mother and her son, who is a student at Sarasota Military Academy, were being quarantined after coming in contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Neither has any symptoms of the disease, but the illness has an incubation period of two weeks or more. The quarantined student was not one of the cadets present at the event with Pence.
The academy acknowledged that the mother and son had been present at the school between contacting the coronavirus patient and being notified of their possible infection. Col. Christina Bowman, executive director of schools at the academy, said the school had been completely sanitized twice, including once on Monday after news broke about the potential infection.
“I want our parents and our employees to know that we’re safe,” Bowman said. “We’ve been proactive on sanitizing, teaching our students how to make sure that they’re washing their hands and such. But to make sure that we’re working with the Florida Department of Health and making sure that we’re following their protocol, and by following their protocol, at this time, they are not recommending any exclusions. They’re recommending to go about our business every day.”
President Trump recently named Pence as the White House leader on coronavirus. The Pentagon has been in contact with the academy about the situation, but some advisers to the vice president were still unaware of the quarantined student as of Tuesday morning, according to Bloomberg News.
Pence’s spokeswoman, Katie Miller, addressed the situation, tweeting on Tuesday, “Can we all take a deep breath? Pence did not meet or come into contact at all with this student.”
Can we all take a deep breath? @Mike_Pence did not meet or come into contact at all with this student. https://t.co/uLzvnVcoS4
— Katie Miller (@VPPressSec) March 3, 2020
Coronavirus has infected more than 92,000 people worldwide and caused the deaths of more than 3,000 people. The United States has witnessed six people die after being infected.
