According to the White House, US Vice President Kamala Harris tested positive for COVID-19 on Tuesday, but she is asymptomatic and is not considered a current close contact of President Joe Biden.
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“Today, Vice President Harris tested positive for COVID-19 on rapid and PCR tests. She has exhibited no symptoms, will isolate and continue to work from the vice president’s residence,” said Harris’ press secretary, Kirsten Allen.
“She has not been a close contact to the president or first lady due to their respective recent travel schedules,” Allen said, adding that Harris would “return to the White House when she tests negative.”
Harris, 57, is the latest in a string of high-profile instances involving the Washington elite.
Doug Emhoff, Harris’s husband, was diagnosed with COVID in March, but she remained negative.
The White House has publicly discussed the possibility of 79-year-old Biden testing positive for the virulent but far less dangerous Omicron version of the coronavirus, while downplaying any potential consequences.
“It is certainly possible that he will test positive for COVID, and he is vaccinated, he is boosted and protected from the most severe strains of the virus,” White House communications director Kate Bedingfield said earlier this month.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki, who contracted COVID in March and again last year, and House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who comes after Harris in the presidential succession line, are two recent high-profile cases in Washington.
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Before immunizations were available, then-President Donald Trump spent three days in the hospital in October 2020, undergoing emergency treatment for COVID-19, which he had previously stated was not a threat to Americans.
Covid-19 has now killed over 900,000 individuals in the United States, with over 3,000 people dying every day at its height. Covid kills between 300 and 400 individuals every day in the world’s richest country.
