Joe Biden: US President Tests Positive for Coronavirus – White House Announcement

US President Joe Biden tested positive for the coronavirus while traveling in Las Vegas on Wednesday (17/7).

He is showing “mild symptoms,” including “general malaise” due to the infection, according to a White House statement.

Biden will return to his home in Delaware, where he will “self-isolate and continue to carry out his full duties during this period,” spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said.

“He was vaccinated with a booster dose and has mild symptoms,” Jean-Pierre said.

The news was first announced by Unidos USA President and CEO Janet Murgia, who told guests at the civil rights organization’s conference in Las Vegas that the president would not be attending after all because he had tested positive for the virus.

Murgia’s announcement at the conference

🚨 Joe Biden tests positive for COVID-19, cancels speech in Las Vegas, Nevada pic.twitter.com/gYSm1C1NIV

– Manuel Lopez San Martin (MLopezSanMartin) July 17, 2024

He is already receiving treatment.

Dr. Kevin O’Connor, the president’s physician, said in a memo that Biden “has been presenting with upper respiratory symptoms, including rhinorrhea (runny nose) and nonproductive cough, with general malaise.”

After testing positive for COVID-19, Biden was given the antiviral drug Paxlovid and received his first dose, O’Connor said.

Biden was scheduled to speak at the Las Vegas event as part of an effort to rally Hispanic voters ahead of the November election. Instead, he left for the airport to head to Delaware, where he had already planned to spend the weekend at his home in Rehoboth Beach.

As he left Las Vegas, the president told reporters, “I’m fine, I’m eating well.”

BREAKING: President Biden has tested positive for COVID-19, according to the organizer of a Las Vegas campaign event where he was scheduled to appear. https://t.co/MVRC0xKuGm

— CNN (@CNN) July 17, 2024