By Michael D. Shear
First lady Jill Biden tested positive for the coronavirus Monday evening and is quarantining at a private home in South Carolina, where she and President Joe Biden had been vacationing for the past several days, her office announced Tuesday.
Jill Biden is experiencing mild symptoms, Elizabeth Alexander, her communications director, said in a statement. The first lady has been prescribed Paxlovid, an antiviral medication that reduces the effects of the infection, and will not return to the White House until she receives two consecutive negative tests, Alexander said.
“The first lady began to develop coldlike symptoms late in the evening,” Alexander said in the statement. “She tested negative again on a rapid antigen test, but a PCR test came back positive. The first lady is double vaccinated, twice boosted and only experiencing mild symptoms.”
Biden’s positive test comes not long after the end of the president’s bout with COVID-19. Joe Biden developed COVID-19 last month, then tested negative but had a so-called rebound case at the end of the month, when he tested positive again for a week.
A statement sent to reporters said Joe Biden tested negative Tuesday morning. He returned to the White House to sign the climate and tax bill in the afternoon, and he continued on to Wilmington, Delaware, for the rest of the week as planned.
“Consistent with CDC guidance because he is a close contact of the first lady, he will mask for 10 days when indoors and in close proximity to others,” the White House statement said. “We will also increase the president’s testing cadence and report those results.”