US delegation to Asia postponed after Nancy Pelosi tests positive for coronavirus
- The House speaker received the positive test after having tested negative earlier in the week, a spokesman said
- The congressional trip to Asia that Pelosi had planned to lead, reported to include a stop in Taiwan, has been put off with no indication of when it will be rescheduled
US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has postponed a trip to Asia – including a reported planned stopover in Taiwan – after testing positive for Covid-19, her office said on Thursday.
The announcement came following media reports in Taiwan and Japan that Pelosi, Democrat of California, would travel to Taiwan after a trip to Japan, becoming the first House Speaker to visit the self-governed island in 25 years.
“A planned congressional delegation to Asia, led by [Pelosi], will be postponed to a later date,” Drew Hammill, Pelosi’s deputy chief of staff, said on Twitter following the diagnosis.
Pelosi, 82, was asymptomatic, Hammill said, adding that she was isolating, according to guidance by the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The positive diagnosis comes just a day after Pelosi and other congressional figures, all unmasked, stood beside US President Joe Biden for several minutes at an indoor ceremony marking the enactment of postal service reform legislation.
The two also appeared at another signing ceremony on Tuesday.
Despite their proximity, the White House said Biden was not considered a “close contact,” citing CDC guidance. The CDC determines someone to be a close contact of an infected individual if they are near one another for at least 15 minutes cumulatively over a 24-hour period.
Biden tested negative for Covid-19 on Wednesday night, the White House said, and would continue to test “regularly”.