CNN
—
First Lady Jill Biden tested positive for Covid-19 on Monday, the White House announced.
“This evening, the First Lady tested positive for COVID-19. He is currently experiencing only mild symptoms. “He will be staying at their home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware,” Elizabeth Alexander, a spokeswoman for the first lady, said in a statement.
According to the White House, President Joe Biden, 80, tested negative.
There are no changes to the White House’s Covid protocols or the president’s schedule at this time, an administration official told CNN on Monday.
The 72-year-old first lady’s diagnosis comes amid a busy week for Joe Biden, who delivered a Labor Day speech in Philadelphia earlier in the day. The president is scheduled to present the medal to the military chief at a ceremony at the White House on Tuesday before he leaves for the G20 summit in India on Thursday.
CNN has asked for more details on the president and first lady’s routine Covid testing cadence and whether Joe Biden was with his wife when she started showing symptoms of Covid.
Last summer, the first lady tested positive for Covid-19 after vacationing in South Carolina in August. President Joe Biden tested positive last July. Both experienced relapse shortly after treatment with Paxlovid.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters in the White House briefing room in July that anyone who meets the president is still being tested for Covid-19 after members of Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s delegation tested positive ahead of the bilateral meeting. .
“We have testing protocols in place anytime — any time someone meets the president,” Jean-Pierre said at the time. “So I can tell you that anybody who meets with the president is really going to be vetted. I do. We do everything.”
Jill Biden’s diagnosis comes amid renewed attention to Covid-19 as the world approaches its fourth virus season since the coronavirus hit the scene.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed a slight increase in early summer hospital admissions, emergency department visits and positive Covid-19 tests — though not as much as in past summers.
The CDC reported four new hospitalizations per 100,000 people nationwide in the week ending Aug. 19, which is considered low. Thresholds. Seven districts had the highest number of Covid-19 hospitals. But 117 districts – 3.6% of the country – were in the middle threshold. A quarter of those counties were in Florida.
A new variant, BA.2.86, has attracted the attention of scientists because it is so mutated, but so far it has only been detected in a small number of people worldwide. Still, “it doesn’t look good in terms of the relentless evolution of the virus,” said Dr. Eric Topol, a cardiologist at the Scripps Research Translational Institute. The virus “continues to find new ways to challenge humans, find new hosts, and find new hosts again, and it’s relentless.”
This story has been updated with additional information.
