U.S. President Joe Biden, who tested positive for COVID-19 while experiencing mild symptoms, sits at his desk in the White House residence in this handout photo obtained from President Biden's Twitter account on Thursday. (Courtesy Twitter President Biden@POTUS/Handout via Reuters)
WASHINGTON--Joe Biden, the oldest person ever to serve as president of the United States, has tested positive for COVID-19, is experiencing mild symptoms and will continue working but in isolation, the White House said on Thursday.
Biden, 79, has a runny nose, fatigue and an occasional dry cough, symptoms which he began to experience late on Wednesday, White House physician Kevin O'Connor said in a note released on Thursday. Biden has begun taking the antiviral treatment Paxlovid, O'Connor said.
Fully vaccinated and twice boosted, Biden said he was "doing well" in a video posted on his Twitter account. In the 21-second clip, he also said he was "getting a lot of work done" and would continue with his duties. A photograph on his Twitter account showed him smiling, wearing a blazer and sitting at a desk with papers.
White House COVID coordinator, Dr. Ashish Jha, said Biden's oxygen levels were normal and the president would isolate for five days and return to public events once he had a negative COVID test.
Biden became ill at a time when his administration is grappling with soaring inflation, global supply challenges, mass shootings and Russia's land assault on Ukraine. His illness forced cancellation of a trip to Pennsylvania where Biden intended to lay out plans to ask Congress for $37 billion for crime prevention programmes.
The White House provided an unusually detailed account of the president's morning activities, including a series of phone calls to political allies, and said people who had come into close contact with Biden were being told of his illness. Vice President Kamala Harris was in close contact with Biden on Tuesday, a White House official said. Biden's chief of staff, Ron Klain, told MSNBC he was as well, but he said that so far no one linked to the president's case had tested positive.
The Pfizer Inc antiviral drug Paxlovid that Biden is taking has been shown to reduce the risk of severe disease by nearly 90% in high risk patients if given within the first five days of infection. But Paxlovid has in some cases been associated with rebound infections, in which patients improve quickly and test negative after a five-day course of the drug, with symptoms returning days later.
Dr. Bruce Farber, chief of infectious diseases at Northwell Health in New York, who is not treating the president, said Paxlovid is likely the only treatment Biden will get, unless his symptoms worsen. "Elderly people are more at risk for developing complications from COVID," Farber said. "It dramatically is lower if you've been vaccinated and doubly boosted, which he has been, so I anticipate he will do very well."
