WASHINGTON (AP) — For more than a year, President Joe Biden’s ability to avoid the coronavirus seemed to defy the odds. When he finally tested positive, the White House was ready. His goal was to turn the diagnosis into a “teachable moment” and dispel any notion of a crisis.
“The president is doing what every other person in America does every day, which is he’s taking reasonable precautions against COVID, but he’s doing his job,” White House chief of staff Ron Klein told MSNBC late Thursday afternoon.
It was a day that began with Biden’s COVID-19 results and included repeated assurances in the hours that followed that the president was working hard while self-isolating in White House living quarters 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, I’ve done a lot of work. In the meantime, thanks for your concern. And keep the faith. Everything will be fine.”
“Keeping busy!” he also tweeted.
On Friday, Biden was scheduled to meet virtually with his economic team and top advisers to discuss congressional priorities.
It was all part of the administration’s effort to shift the narrative from a health scare to showing Biden as personifying the idea that most Americans could get COVID and recover without much suffering and disruption if they got their shots and took other important steps to protect themselves.
The message was designed to ease voters’ concerns about Biden’s health — at 79, he is the oldest person to ever serve as president. And it aimed to demonstrate to the country that the pandemic is much less of a threat than it was before Biden took office, thanks to widespread vaccines and new therapeutic drugs.
But conveying that sentiment on Day 1 of Biden’s coronavirus experience wasn’t always easy.
In a lengthy briefing with reporters, White House press secretary Karin Jean-Pierre said repeatedly that the White House has been as transparent as possible about the president’s health. But she sparred with reporters about the specifics. And when asked where Biden might have contracted the virus, she replied: “I don’t think it matters, does it? I think the most important thing is that we are prepared for this moment.”
Jean-Pierre and White House COVID-19 response coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha did not fully respond to questions about whether Biden began self-isolating as soon as he began experiencing symptoms Wednesday night, as federal guidelines suggest, or whether he did after his positive test the next day. Jha declined to speculate on some aspects of the president’s forecast, characterizing the questions as hypothetical.
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 need to remain vigilant about the virus, which continues to kill hundreds of people every day.
“That’s the balance we have to strike,” Osterholm said. “The President of the United States will do very well. But this may not be true for everyone.
Biden’s symptoms on the first day were mild in large part because he was fully vaccinated and boosted, according to a statement issued by his doctor, Dr. Kevin O’Connor. The president is also taking Paxlovid, an antiviral drug designed to reduce the severity of the illness.
Jha said Biden’s case is 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 substrain now accounts for more than 65% of US cases.
Jean-Pierre said first lady Jill Biden had been in close contact with the president, but she declined to discuss others who may have also been exposed, citing privacy concerns. 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 Klein said he was as well.
Klein, who called the president’s positive test a “teachable moment” for the country, said the White House is not aware of any positive COVID results linked to the president’s case.
During his briefing, Jean-Pierre bristled at suggestions that the Biden administration has not been much more forthcoming with information about the president’s illness than that of his predecessor, Donald Trump. The former president contracted COVID-19 in the fall of 2020, before vaccines were available, and was hospitalized at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for three nights.
“I totally disagree,” Jean-Pierre said of the comparison. “We’re doing this very differently — very differently — than the previous administration.”
Asked about the possibility of Biden needing to be hospitalized, Jah emphasized that the president is “doing well” and added that “there are obviously a lot of resources available here at the White House to take care of him.”
“Walter Reed is always ready for presidents. That’s always an option,” he added. “This is true whether the president has had COVID or not.”
Dr. Liana Wen, a professor of public health at George Washington University, said it was good for the White House to send a message that Biden could continue to work even after testing positive.
“It shows that it’s business as usual,” Wen said.
Jean-Pierre’s predecessor, Jen Psaki, noted that White House officials “have been preparing for this for probably several months, given the percentage of people in the country who have tested positive.”
“What they have to do in the next few days is show him how he works and show him that he’s still active and serving as president, and I’m sure they probably will,” Psaki, who left her post of the White House press secretary in May, said on MSNBC, where she becomes a commentator.
Biden plans to continue self-isolating until he tests negative, the White House said.
Dr Eric Topol, head of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, said this could mean he is “out of commission from human interaction for at least eight to 10 days”.
“This could easily go on for a couple of weeks, but the good thing is that they’re going to be watching it very closely,” Topol said. “This is what we need to do for everyone so that we don’t continue to play into the hands of the virus, causing more spread when it is already hyper-spreadable.”
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