TULSA, Okla. — Dozens of Secret Service officers and agents who attended President Donald Trump’s rally in Oklahoma on Saturday were ordered to self-quarantine after two of their colleagues tested positive for the coronavirus, The Washington Post reported.
Trump was speaking in Tulsa in his first campaign rally since the pandemic forced new rules about social distancing. Two Secret Service agents who attended the rally at the BOK Center tested positive for the coronavirus, CNN reported. That came after six advance staffers for Trump’s rally tested positive for COVID-19.
“The U.S. Secret Service remains prepared and staffed to fulfill all of the various duties as required. Any implication that the agency is in some way unprepared or incapable of executing our mission would be inaccurate,” Secret Service spokesperson Catherine Milhoan said in a statement Wednesday. “To protect the privacy of our employees’ health information and for operational security, the Secret Service is not releasing how many of its employees have tested positive for COVID-19, nor how many of its employees were, or currently are, quarantined.”
The Secret Service instructed employees who worked the Tulsa event to stay at home for 14 days when they returned from the weekend trip, CNN reported.
On Tuesday, the Secret Service field office in Tulsa arranged for a special testing session at a hospital to determine if local agents had contracted the virus while attending the rally, the Post reported. Doctors administered the test to both agents and some local officials in parked cars outside the hospital.
Also tested was U.S. Attorney R. Trent Shores of the Northern District of Oklahoma, who had attended the rally’s pre-planning meetings with advance staff, spokesperson Lennea Montandon told the Post. Shores tested negative, she said.