Vice President Kamala Harris has tested positive for Covid-19, according to the White House on Tuesday after returning from a weeklong trip to California.
Harris is not showing symptoms and has not been in close contact with President Joe Biden or first lady Jill Biden, the vice president’s press secretary said.
Harris, 57, “will isolate and continue to work from the Vice President’s residence,” her press secretary, Kirsten Allen, said in a statement, reports CNBC News.
Harris tested positive on both rapid and PCR tests but “has exhibited no symptoms,” the White House said. She will isolate herself at her residence but continue to work remotely, and will return to the White House only when she tests negative for the virus.
Harris, 57, received her first dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine weeks before taking office and a second dose just days after Inauguration Day in 2021. She received a booster shot in late October and an additional booster on April 1, according to The Associated Press.
Fully vaccinated and boosted people have a high degree of protection against serious illness and death from COVID-19, particularly from the most common and highly transmissible omicron variant.
Harris’ diagnosis comes a month after her husband, Doug Emhoff, recovered from the virus, as a wave of cases of the highly transmissible omicron subvariant has spread through Washington’s political class, infecting Cabinet members, White House staffers, and lawmakers including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
After more than two years and nearly a million deaths in the U.S., the virus is still killing more than 300 people a day in the U.S., according to the CDC. The unvaccinated are at a far greater risk, more than three times as likely to test positive and 20 times as likely to die from the virus than those who have received at least a primary dose of the vaccines, according to the public health agency.
