Watch: Biden gingerly boards Air Force One after testing positive for Covid
Thursday, 18 July 2024
US President Joe Biden tested positive for Covid-19 while travelling in Las Vegas, and is experiencing “mild symptoms” including “general malaise” from the infection, the White House says.
Biden was seen gingerly boarding Air Force One, where he told reporters travelling with him, “I feel good”. The president was not wearing a mask as he walked onto the plane.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden will fly to his home in Delaware, where he will “self-isolate and will continue to carry out all of his duties fully during that time”.
The bad news for the president came as more members of his party moved to pressure him to drop his reelection bid.
Earlier in the day, Democratic Representative Adam Schiff of California called on Biden to step aside.
“Our nation is at a crossroads,” Schiff told The Los Angeles Times. “A second Trump presidency will undermine the very foundation of our democracy, and I have serious concerns about whether the president can defeat Donald Trump in November.”
ABC News then reported that Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader in the US Senate, made the case to Biden that it would be best for him to drop his reelection bid. A spokesperson for Schumer did not deny the report.
“Unless ABC’s source is Senator Chuck Schumer or President Joe Biden the reporting is idle speculation,” the spokesperson said. “Leader Schumer conveyed the views of his caucus directly to President Biden on Saturday.”
Politico also reported on the meeting, with a source close to both men saying Schumer spoke directly with Biden about his concerns that the Democratic Party was facing defeat in November's election.
“The meeting discussed recent polling, the Democratic Party and where it’s headed,” the person told Politico, adding that the talk “was predicated on the recent troubles facing the president”.
The news that Biden had contracted Covid-19 was first shared by UnidosUS president and CEO Janet Murguía, who told guests at the group’s convention in Las Vegas that president had sent his regrets and could not appear because he tested positive for the virus.
Dr Kevin O’Connor, the president’s physician, said in a note that Biden “presented this afternoon with upper respiratory symptoms, to include rhinorhea (runny nose) and non-productive cough, with general malaise”.
After the positive Covid-19 test, Biden was prescribed the antiviral drug Paxlovid and has taken his first dose, O’Connor said.
Biden was slated to speak at the Unidos event in Las Vegas Wednesday afternoon (local time) as part of an effort to rally Hispanic voters ahead of the November election.
Instead, he departed for the airport to fly to Delaware, where he had already been planning to spend a long weekend at his home in Rehoboth Beach.
Biden has been vaccinated and is current on his recommended annual booster dose for Covid-19. The vaccines have proven highly effective at limiting serious illness and death from the virus, which killed more than 1 million people in the US since the pandemic began in 2020.
Paxlovid has been proven to curtail the chances of serious illness and death from Covid-19 when prescribed in the early days of an infection, but has also been associated with rebound infections, where the virus comes back a few days after clearing up.
Biden last tested positive for Covid-19 twice in the summer of 2022, when he had a primary case and a rebound case of the virus.
Health officials in the US have reported recent upticks in emergency room visits and hospitalisations from Covid-19. There has also been a pronounced increase in positive test results in much of the country — particularly the southwestern US.