The White House has on Thursday announced that President Joe Biden tested positive for COVID-19.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement that Biden, who tested positive on Thursday morning is “experiencing very mild symptoms” and “has begun taking Paxlovid,” an antiviral drug.
Biden received his first two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in December 2020 and January 2021, and received two Pfizer booster shots in September 2021 and March 2022, so his case is a so-called breakthrough infection.
Infections in fully vaccinated people have become increasingly common with the emergence of the Delta and Omicron variants, but the shots have proven effective in preventing serious illness, hospitalization, and death.
The rapid global spread of Omicron, which was first detected and identified in southern Africa in November, caused a massive spike in coronavirus cases in the US beginning in early December that peaked in mid-January 2022 before leveling off.
Omicron and its BA. 5 subvariant, which has proven especially evasive to prior immunity, have continued to circulate in the Washington, DC area and among its prominent politicians and power players.
Vice President Kamala Harris announced that she tested positive on April 26, and dozens of members of Congress have reported contracting COVID-19 in the past several months.
