UPDATE 1-Pompeo shortens upcoming Asia trip after Trump falls ill with COVID-19

(Adds details, background, State Department statement)
By Humeyra Pamuk
WASHINGTON, Oct 3 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo will depart for Japan on Sunday but will not go to
Mongolia and South Korea as originally planned, the State
Department said on Saturday, after President Donald Trump was
diagnosed and hospitalized due to the coronavirus.
Initially, Pompeo planned to visit all three countries
between Oct. 4 and Oct 8. He is still set to leave for Tokyo on
Sunday but will be returning to Washington on Oct. 6 after
consultations with his Japanese counterparts and attending a
wider meeting with foreign ministers of India and Australia.
Trump announced his illness in the early hours of Friday and
was flown from the White House to Walter Reed National Military
Medical Center near Washington. In a video from the hospital on
Saturday, he said he felt 'much better' but the next few days
will be 'the real test' of his treatment for COVID-19.
In a speech delivered virtually earlier to the Florida
Family Policy Council, Pompeo said he was in good health but
that he canceled his in-person appearance at the event "out of
an abundance of caution." He said he still planned to go to
Asia.
"You should know that I'm feeling fine, I'm doing great.
I've been tested twice in two days. I'm as healthy as I've been.
And I intend still – I have a trip that I'm planning to take to
Asia tomorrow," he said.
In a statement, the State Department said Pompeo was
expecting to travel to Asia again in October and will work to
reschedule the visits in his original itinerary.
Pompeo's visit to East Asia, his first to the region in over
a year, comes at a time when U.S. ties with Beijing are at their
worst in decades. Apart from Trump, the coronavirus has infected
his wife Melania and several Republican senators, as well as
millions of other Americans.