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President Biden, who tested positive for the coronavirus on Thursday, likely has the BA.5 variant and continues to experience mild symptoms that are improving, the White House said Saturday.
Biden’s symptoms, which include a sore throat, runny nose, cough and body aches, remain mild, his doctor Kevin O’Connor wrote in a letter released Saturday morning. The president has been taking the antiviral drug Paxlovid for two days and will continue treatment, O’Connor said. He is also taking Tylenol and uses an albuterol inhaler a few times a day for his cough.
“His pulse, blood pressure, respiratory rate and temperature remain completely normal,” O’Connor wrote. “His lungs remain clear.”
Biden, 79, is the second US president to test positive for the coronavirus. His symptoms have so far been much milder than those for President Donald Trump, who spent three days at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in October 2020 after contracting the virus before the first vaccines were rolled out.
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In recent months, Biden has emphasized that fully vaccinated Americans can begin to resume their normal routines.
“Thanks to the progress we’ve made over the past year, covid-19 no longer needs to control our lives,” he said during his State of the Union address in March.
But new strains, including the highly transmissible omicron BA.5 subvariant, which is responsible for up to 80 percent of current infections in the United States, have continued to infect millions of Americans. The virus is responsible for 125,000 new cases and more than 400 deaths each day, according to seven-day averages in The Washington Post’s covid tracker.
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O’Connor wrote that preliminary sequencing results are back and Biden “probably” has the BA.5 subvariant. The president, who is vaccinated and has received two boosters, continues to self-isolate according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, the doctor said.
Biden has continued to work while ill, meeting virtually with his finance team and speaking with staff on FaceTime on Friday. The White House previously said Biden will self-isolate for at least five days and will remain in isolation until he tests negative.
“He’s still working more than eight hours a day,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at a briefing Friday. “… Look, the president hopes the country will see that while we have to continue to take covid very seriously, we have the tools we need to do that.”