The U.S. ambassador to South Africa refused to isolate herself after she attended a dinner at Mar-a-Lago with Brazilian officials who later tested positive for the coronavirus.
Ambassador Lana Marks told her State Department employees that she was not at risk of getting the coronavirus because the dinner at President Trump’s Florida club was outside and that she believed the illness could not survive the heat, according to the Washington Post.
Marks held a discussion with staff members at U.S. diplomatic facilities in South Africa on Thursday after complaints from employees that she refused to self-quarantine or take other protective measures.
The ambassador told staff at the meeting that she would partly isolate herself after previously telling employees who raised concerns that the incubator period had lapsed. She told one employee at the embassy that she did not believe the positive test result for President Jair Bolsonaro’s press secretary Fabio Wajngarten.
The Washington Examiner has reached out to the State Department for comment.
