Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the death of a State Department official who had contracted the COVID-19 virus.
The death marked the first American fatality within the U.S. diplomatic corps from the coronavirus. Pompeo did not identify the official, nor did he explain how the person contracted the virus. However, he did acknowledge that four to five dozen department employees have tested positive for COVID-19, according to the Associated Press.
Officials have been tracking 105 confirmed cases across the agency’s global workforce of about 75,000 employees. Of those, 75 cases included people stationed overseas, and 30 cases included people who work at State Department offices in nine cities across the United States.
As of Tuesday afternoon, there have been more than 800,000 confirmed coronavirus cases around the world and nearly 40,000 related deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. In totality, more than 165,000 people who were diagnosed with the virus have recovered.
