by Chuck Ross
Vice President Mike Pence, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and hundreds of members of Congress attended a conference last month along with at least two people who have tested positive for a novel strain of coronavirus that has killed more than 3,000 people across the globe.
“We have confirmed that at least two Policy Conference attendees from New York have tested positive for the Coronavirus,” the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, known as AIPAC, said in a statement on Twitter.
The group held its annual conference in Washington, D.C. from March 1-3.
Important Update: Coronavirus
As emailed to Policy Conference attendees, participants, speakers, administration and Hill offices.https://t.co/0mkWeuRErA pic.twitter.com/EHl694pkgJ
— AIPAC (@AIPAC) March 6, 2020
According to AIPAC, more than 18,000 people, including two-thirds of Congress, attend the policy conference each year.
Earlier on Friday, the organizers of South by Southwest, a tech industry and music festival held in Austin, Texas, announced that it would be canceling its annual gathering scheduled for later this month.
AIPAC organizers said Wednesday that a group of attendees had been in contact with an individual who tested positive for the virus, which is called COVID-19.
U.S. health officials have scrambled to ramp up the ability to test for possible cases of the virus. As of Friday, 299 Americans have tested positive for the virus. Fourteen of those have succumbed to the illness. Thirteen of the fatalities have occurred in the state of Washington, and all of the victims have been either elderly or had underlying health issues.
According to Johns Hopkins University, which is tracking the COVID-19 outbreak, more than 101,000 people across the globe have testified positive for the bug, while nearly 3,500 have died.
This year’s AIPAC conference featured a who’s who of high-profile politicians, both from the U.S. and Israel.
In addition to Pence and Netanyahu, the Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate, Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer also attended the three-day event.
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Chuck Ross is a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation.
