The variant, known as BA.5, is an offshoot of the omicron strain that emerged late last year, and it’s believed to be responsible for the vast majority of coronavirus cases in the country.
Dr. Kevin O’Connor, the president’s physician, wrote in his latest update on Biden’s condition that Biden’s earlier symptoms, including a runny nose and a cough, have become “less troublesome.” O’Connor’s earlier notes did not mention the sore throat or body aches.
Biden’s vital signs, such as blood pressure and respiratory rate, “remain entirely normal,” and his oxygen saturation levels are “excellent” with “no shortness of breath at all,” the doctor wrote.
O’Connor said the results of the preliminary sequencing that indicated the BA.5 variant do not affect Biden’s treatment plan “in any way.”
Biden tested positive for the virus on Thursday morning. He has been isolating in the White House residence since then. Administration officials have emphasized that his symptoms are mild because he has received four vaccine doses, and he started taking the antiviral drug Paxlovid after becoming infected.
During a virtual meeting with economic advisers on Friday, Biden was hoarse but insisted, “I feel much better than I sound.”
In his previous update on Biden’s health, O’Connor said the president had an elevated temperature of 99.4 F on Thursday evening, but it returned to normal after taking Tylenol.
For more than a year, President Joe Biden’s ability to avoid the coronavirus seemed to defy the odds. When he finally did test positive, the White House was ready. It set out to turn the diagnosis into a “teachable moment” and dispel any notion of a crisis.
“The president does what every other person in America does every day, which is he takes reasonable precautions against COVID but does his job,” White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain told MSNBC late in the afternoon on Thursday.
It was a day that began with Biden’s COVID-19 results and included repeated assurances over the coming hours that the president was hard at work while isolating in the residential areas of the White House with “very mild symptoms” including a runny nose, dry cough and fatigue.
Biden, in a blazer and Oxford shirt, recorded a video from the White House balcony telling people: “I’m doing well, getting a lot of work done. And, in the meantime, thanks for your concern. And keep the faith. It’s going to be OK.”
“Keeping busy!” he also tweeted.
On Friday, Biden was scheduled to meet virtually with his economic team and senior advisors to discuss congressional priorities.
It was all part of an administration effort to shift the narrative from a health scare to a display of Biden as the personification of the idea that most Americans can get COVID and recover without too much suffering and disruption if they’ve gotten their shots and taken other important steps to protect themselves.
The message was crafted to alleviate voters’ concerns about Biden’s health — at 79, he’s the oldest person ever to be president. And it was aimed at demonstrating to the country that the pandemic is far less of a threat than it was before Biden took office, thanks to widespread vaccines and new therapeutic drugs.
Conveying that sentiment on Day 1 of Biden’s coronavirus experience virus wasn’t always easy, though.
In a lengthy briefing with reporters, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said repeatedly that the White House had been as transparent as possible about the president’s health. But she parried with reporters over specifics. And when pressed about where Biden might have contracted the virus, she responded, “I don’t think that that matters, right? I think what matters is we prepared for this moment.”
Jean-Pierre and White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha didn’t fully answer questions about whether Biden began isolating as soon as he started experiencing symptoms on Wednesday night, as federal guidelines suggest, or did so following his positive test the next day. Jha declined to speculate on some aspects of the president’s prognosis, characterizing the questions as hypotheticals.
Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said it’s important for Americans to know they must remain careful about the virus, which continues to kill hundreds of people daily.
“That’s the balance that we have to strike,” Osterholm said. “The president of the United States will do very well. But that may not be true for everyone.”
Biden’s first-day symptoms were mild in large part because he’s fully vaccinated and boosted, according to a statement issued by his physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor. The president also is taking Paxlovid, an antiviral drug designed to reduce the severity of the disease.
Jha said Biden’s case was being prioritized, meaning it will likely take less than a week for sequencing to determine which variant of the virus Biden contracted. Omicron’s highly contagious BA.5 sub-strain now makes up more than 65% of U.S. cases.
Jean-Pierre said first lady Jill Biden was in close contact with the president, but she declined to discuss others who also might have been exposed, citing privacy reasons. Biden had traveled to Massachusetts a day earlier to promote efforts to combat climate change and flew on Air Force One with several Democratic leaders, including Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
A White House official confirmed that Vice President Kamala Harris was also in close contact with Biden, and Klain said he was too.
Klain, who called the president’s testing positive a “teachable moment” for the country, said the White House wasn’t aware of any positive COVID results that were linked to the president’s case.
“I wholeheartedly disagree,” Jean-Pierre said of comparison. “We are doing this very differently — very differently — than the last administration.”
Asked about the possibility Biden might need to be hospitalized, Jha stressed that the president was “doing well” and added that there were “obviously a lot of resources available here at the White House to take care of him.”
“Walter Reed is always on standby for presidents. That’s always an option,” he added. “That’s true whether the president had COVID or not.”
Leana Wen, a public health professor at George Washington University, said it was good for the White House to send the message that Biden can keep working even after testing positive.
“That shows that it’s business as usual,” Wren said.
Jean-Pierre’s predecessor, Jen Psaki, noted that White House officials have “been preparing for this probably for several months now, given the percentage of people in the country who have tested positive.”
“What they need to do over the next couple of days is show him working and show him still active and serving as president and I’m certain they’ll likely do that,” Psaki, who left her post as White House press secretary in May, said on MSNBC, where she’s becoming a commentator.
Biden plans to continue to isolate until he tests negative, the White House said.
Dr. Eric Topol, head of Scripps Research Translational Institute, said that could mean he’s “out of commission from interacting with people for at least eight to 10 days.”
“This could go on easily for a couple of weeks, but the good thing is they are going to monitor him very carefully,” Topol said. “That is what we should be doing for everyone so that we don’t keep playing into the virus’ hands, causing more spread when it’s already hyper-spreadable.”
Total Doses Distributed = 784,110,065. Total Doses Administered = 601,497,801. Number of People Receiving 1 or More Doses = 261,204,035. Number of People Fully Vaccinated = 222,950,194.
President Joe Biden tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday, is experiencing mild symptoms and has begun taking Paxlovid, an antiviral pill treatment.
A look at what we know about the president and his coronavirus infection:
HOW’S HE FEELING?
Biden is reporting a runny nose, fatigue and an occasional dry cough, according to a memo from Dr. Kevin O’Connor, the president’s doctor. Biden’s symptoms started Wednesday evening. Biden tweeted Thursday: “Folks, I’m doing great. Thanks for your concern.”
WHAT KIND OF TEST DID HE USE?
Biden is routinely screened for coronavirus. His infection was detected first with an antigen test, the same type that many Americans use at home. It was then confirmed with a PCR test, the president’s doctor said. The president’s last previous test for COVID-19 was Tuesday, when he had a negative test result.
IS HE VACCINATED?
Yes. The president is fully vaccinated and twice boosted. Biden got two doses of the Pfizer vaccine shortly before taking office, a first booster shot in September and an additional dose March 30.
IS HE GETTING TREATMENT?
Biden is taking Paxlovid, which was authorized in the U.S. regulators late last year. In older people and other high-risk patients, the drug was shown to reduce the chances of hospitalization or death from COVID-19. The pills work best if taken within five days of the start of symptoms. The president’s doctor said Biden’s vaccination status and early treatment with Paxlovid should keep him out of danger.
WHAT’S THE ISOLATION PLAN?
Biden will work in isolation until he tests negative, the White House said. Once he tests negative, he will return to in-person work. The White House said it will provide a daily update on the president’s status.
HOW DOES THE VIRUS AFFECT OLDER PEOPLE?
At age 79, Biden is in a high-risk group for severe illness. About 8 in 10 COVID-19 deaths occur in people over age 65, with risk increasing with age. Also among the most vulnerable are those with other health issues such as diabetes and heart conditions.
DID HE GET THE BA.5 VARIANT?
It’s unclear which variant Biden has contracted. But the dominant virus variant in the U.S. is the omicron mutant BA.5, which is also prominent worldwide. The variant accounted for three-quarters of new infections reported in the U.S. last week. It’s also been gaining ground globally, making up more than half of sequenced omicron cases. Experts say BA.5 is one of the most transmissible variants yet but they haven’t seen an increase in severity compared with previous omicron variants.
WHERE DID HE CATCH IT?
That’s unclear. Symptoms can start two days to two weeks after exposure to the virus. Biden has kept a busy travel schedule lately. During his recent Middle East trip, the president was seen fist-bumping, handshaking and even occasionally hugging. He returned to Washington late Saturday and kept a low profile for the next three days, leaving briefly to attend church in Washington and for a Tuesday appearance outside the White House with Ukraine’s first lady. He traveled to Massachusetts on Wednesday to announce modest new steps to combat climate change.
WHAT ABOUT JILL BIDEN?
The first lady said Thursday that she tested negative earlier in the day. She will follow CDC guidance on masking and distancing during scheduled visits to Michigan and Georgia on Thursday, said Michael LaRosa, her spokesperson.
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AP Medical Writer Laura Ungar contributed.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Micronesia has likely become the final nation in the world with a population of more than 100,000 to experience an outbreak of COVID-19.
For more than two-and-a-half years, the Pacific archipelago managed to avoid any outbreaks thanks to its geographic isolation and border controls. Those people who flew into the country with the disease didn’t spread it because all new arrivals were required to quarantine.
On Tuesday, the government announced it had become aware of multiple cases across two of the nation’s four states.
Authorities said that in Kosrae State, 25 people tested positive after showing up at a local hospital. An additional 10 people from a family of 11 tested positive after a medical team visited them.
Authorities said they had also found seven community cases in the state of Pohnpei. State leaders there have asked all residents to avoid public gatherings and to wear masks at all times.
The outbreak comes less than two weeks before Micronesia planned to end its quarantine restrictions and reopen its borders to the world on Aug. 1.
Last year, Micronesia became one of the few countries to impose a broad mandate requiring all eligible citizens get vaccinated against the coronavirus. It threatened to withhold federal funds from any individuals or business owners who didn’t follow the rules, and as a result has had high vaccination rates.
Almost all nations in the world have now experienced COVID-19 outbreaks.
Turkmenistan is the only other country with more than 100,000 people that hasn’t reported any cases, although experts believe there has been a significant outbreak there that the autocratic leadership has chosen to ignore.
There have also been headaches for health officials trying to compile figures from North Korea.
In May, North Korea acknowledged it had a COVID-19 outbreak. Since then, it has reported nearly 4.8 million cases with fever symptoms, but in state media has identified only a fraction of them as confirmed COVID-19 patients, due in part to a lack of test kits.
Elsewhere in the Pacific, the omicron variant has spread the coronavirus to several small nations for the first time this year, including Kiribati, Tonga, Samoa and Nauru.
Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands have so far managed to avoid any community outbreaks. The Marshall Islands plans to end its border quarantine requirements from Oct. 1.
The World Health Organization said Tuesday that coronavirus cases have tripled across Europe in the past six weeks, accounting for nearly half of all infections globally. Hospitalization rates have also doubled, although intensive care admissions have remained low.
In a statement on Tuesday, WHO’s Europe director, Dr. Hans Kluge, described COVID-19 as “a nasty and potentially deadly illness” that people should not underestimate. He said super-infectious relatives of the omicron variant were driving new waves of disease across the continent and that repeat infections could potentially lead to long COVID.
WHO said the 53 countries in its European region, which stretches to central Asia, reported nearly 3 million new coronavirus infections last week and that the virus was killing about 3,000 people every week. Globally, COVID-19 cases have increased for the past five weeks, even as countries have scaled back on testing.
“With rising cases, we’re also seeing a rise in hospitalizations, which are only set to increase further in the autumn and winter months,” Kluge said. “This forecast presents a huge challenge to the health workforce in country after country, already under enormous pressure dealing with unrelenting crises since 2020.”
Earlier this week, editors of two British medical journals said the country’s National Health Service has never before had so many parts of the system so close to collapsing.
Kamran Abbasi, of the BMJ and Alastair McLellan of the Health Service Journal wrote in a joint editorial that the U.K. government was failing to address persistent problems worsened by COVID, including ambulances lining up outside hospitals too overloaded to accept new patients.
They slammed the government’s insistence that vaccines have broken the link between infections and hospitalizations. Although vaccines dramatically reduce the chances of severe disease and death, they have not made a significant dent on transmission.
“The government must stop gaslighting the public and be honest about the threat the pandemic still poses to them and the National Health Service,” the editors wrote.
WHO released its fall strategy for COVID-19 on Tuesday. The U.N. health agency called for a second vaccine booster dose for anyone age 5 and up with weak immune systems, promoting mask-wearing indoors and on public transportation, and better ventilation in schools, offices and other places.
Kluge said Southern Hemisphere countries were currently experiencing a very active flu season that, combined with COVID, was straining health systems.
“We are likely to see a similar scenario in the Northern Hemisphere,” Kluge said, warning that increased pressure could lead to business, travel and school chaos.
He urged people to make their own decisions, even in countries where authorities have largely abandoned coronavirus restrictions.
“We’re all aware of the tools we have to keep ourselves safe, assess our level of risk and take the necessary steps to protect others if we get infected,” Kluge said. “Just because a mask isn’t mandated doesn’t mean it’s prohibited.”
