MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Biden tests positive again for COVID-19 after just a few days

Dr. O'Connor said Biden was asymptomatic and needed no further treatment b but would nevertheless remain isolated out of concern for his closest aides

US President Joseph Biden has tested positive again for COVID-19, the White House reported. According to his head physician, he “continues to feel well” and is asymptomatic but will nonetheless work from isolation.

Biden tested positive Sunday for a second straight day after recovering last week from a bout of COVID-19, but after four days of negative tests, positive results were returned Saturday. White House doctor Kevin O'Connor linked that outcome Sunday to an unsurprising “rebound positivity.” He also said patients treated with Pfizer's Paxlovid sometimes clear the virus but still test positive afterward. In addition to that, Biden is fully vaccinated.

“The president will continue his strict isolation measures,” O'Connor said, but “he will continue to conduct the business of the American people from the executive residence.” O'Connor also said Saturday that the head of state had required no further treatment, after canceling several engagements, including a face-to-face meeting at the White House with Argentine President Alberto Fernández scheduled originally for July 25.

”As I have stated previously, the president continues to be specifically conscientious to protect any of the Executive Residence, White House, Secret Service, and other staff whose duties require any (albeit socially distanced) proximity to him,“ O'Connor also pointed out.

Biden first tested positive on July 21. At that time, he had mild symptoms, including a fever, that improved after two full days on pills. He then tested negative Wednesday and delivered a speech declaring he was no longer in isolation.

Biden, who will turn 80 in November, is the oldest US president in history, but O'Connor has declared him to be generally in good health. But his predecessor Donald Trump argued it was ”not Covid, it's senile dementia.“

”The doctors got the diagnosis wrong. Biden does not have Covid again, also known as the China virus, but senile dementia,“ posted Trump, who is merely three years younger.

”Joe is considering moving part-time to one of those beautiful retirement homes in Wisconsin where almost 100% of the residents, miraculously and for the first time in history, have had the strength and energy to vote, even when they expressed themselves illegally. Get well soon Joe!” Trump added, thus reiterating for the umpteenth time the accusations of fraud in the 2019 elections in which he lost to Biden.