- Vice President Kamala Harris tested positive for COVID-19, her office announced on Tuesday.
- Harris' office said that Biden is not considered a close contact.
- She is currently asymptomatic.
Vice President Kamala Harris has tested positive for COVID-19, her office announced on Tuesday.
Harris is fully vaccinated with two doses of Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine and received a booster shot in October 2021, making her case a so-called breakthrough infection.
According to the statement, Harris is asymptomatic. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden are also not considered close contacts.
"The Vice President will return to the White House when she tests negative," Kirsten Allen, Harris' press secretary, said in a statement.
Harris recently returned to her home state of California for a series of events. She spoke at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser in Los Angeles and gave a speech at Vandenberg Space Force Base.
Harris is now the second most powerful US official to test positive for the virus since the pandemic began, though given her age and vaccination status she is very unlikely to contract a serious case. President Donald Trump tested positive in October 2020 before vaccines were approved. His condition worsened to the point that he needed to be briefly hospitalized at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
Second Gentlemen Doug Emhoff tested positive for the virus in mid-March, but Harris did not catch the virus at that time and tested negative throughout.
The vice president wasn't the only prominent Democrat to test positive on Tuesday. Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Chris Murphy of Connecticut both announced that they also have COVID-19. As Politico's Burgess Everett points out, their absences will complicate Senate Democrats' plans to push through any party-line votes in the near future, including on Federal Reserve nominees.
COVID-19 cases nationwide and in the Washington, DC, area have sharply fallen since the mid-January peak caused by the highly contagious Omicron variant. But Omicron is continuing to circulate in the country, with the Omicron BA.2 subvariant now the dominant strain of COVID-19 in the United States.
Former President Barack Obama, 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, and White House press secretary Jen Psaki have also tested positive for the virus in recent weeks. Washington elites have experienced a string of recent cases, many of which were attributed to the exclusive Gridiron dinner. More than 72 people tested positive after attending the early April dinner, including three Cabinet secretaries.