Washington–Postmaster General Jack Potter said on Oct. 24 that there’s no need to close down postal operations despite a growing number of anthrax cases resulting from terrorist mailings. “We have very defined incidents in four locations around the country,” Potter told cable network CNN, referring to cases in New York, Washington, Florida and New Jersey.
“I don’t believe there is a need to shut down the Postal Service,” he said in the CNN interview. “Life is filled with risks. That’s not to minimize what’s going on here, but it’s to suggest that you just don’t shut the Postal Service down. If you did, how would you ever open it again? There are no guarantees [that] there is no anthrax anywhere.”
On Oct. 24, six more postal workers in the Brentwood mail center here–the facility where two mail handlers, who died Monday, worked–were suspected of having anthrax and have been hospitalized, taking the antibiotic ciprofloxacin.