Washington
President Donald Trump’s campaign says six staff members helping set up for his Saturday night rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, have tested positive for coronavirus.
The campaign’s communications director, Tim Murtaugh, said in a statement that “quarantine procedures” were immediately initiated and no staff member who tested positive would attend the event. He said no one who had immediate contact with those staffers would attend, either.
Murtaugh said campaign staff members are tested for COVID-19 as part of the campaign’s safety protocols.
Campaign officials say everyone who is attending the rally will be given temperature checks before they pass through security. They will also be given masks to wear, if they want, and hand sanitizer at the 19,000-seat BOK Center.
The rally was expected to be the largest indoor gathering in the world during the pandemic. Tulsa has seen cases of COVID-19 spike in the past week, and the local health department director asked that the rally be postponed. But Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt said it would be safe. The Oklahoma Supreme Court on Friday denied a request that everyone attending the indoor rally wear a mask, and few in the crowd outside Saturday were wearing them.
President Donald Trump’s Saturday rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma featured a smaller-than-expected crowd, with rows of empty seats at the 19,000-capacity BOK Center despite an announcement of more than one million ticket requests for the event. Some TikTok users and K-pop fans on Twitter believe they could have been responsible for low turnout.
After the Trump re-election campaign opened up registration for free tickets to the rally, K-pop fans on Twitter shared information on how to sign up — with directives to obtain tickets, but not attend.
The posts, per the New York Times, were deleted so that “mainstream” social media users wouldn’t catch wind of their campaign.—AP
