Biden will take another COVID PCR test today

President Joe Biden is still awaiting his results Wednesday after taking another COVID PRC test after being exposed to an aide who later tested positive for the coronavirus after traveling on Air Force One Friday. 

‘I haven’t gotten the result yet,’ Biden told reporters Wednesday morning as they exited the South Court Auditorium after he gave an update on supply chain issues. He coughed throughout the event. 

Since the exposure, the president tested negative Sunday using an antigen test and received a negative result with a PCR test Monday morning. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that fully vaccinated people get tested between five and seven days after being exposed to a COVID-positive person. 

Wednesday will mark day No. 5 for Biden. 

On Wednesday morning, press secretary Jen Psaki spoke about the ‘pretty strict’ protocols the administration has in place for people interacting with the president.   

‘I haven’t gotten the result yet,’ President Joe Biden told reporters Wednesday during a supply chain event after taking a COVID PCR test earlier in the morning. Biden spent 30 minutes Friday with a staffer on Air Force One who later tested positive for the coronavirus

On Wednesday morning, White House press secretary Jen Psaki spoke about the ‘pretty strict’ protocols the administration has in place for people interacting with President Joe Biden 

‘Every time you go meet the president you get tested,’ she said on Way Too Early with Jonathan Lemire, adding that includes when you travel with him.  

‘We always wear masks when we’re in meetings. And when we’re with the president,’ she said. ‘If the CDC changes their guidance, we could certainly consider changing ours as well. But at this point, it hasn’t changed.’  

The White House announced Monday evening that Biden had spent 30 minutes with an aide Friday, who had since tested positive for COVID-19.   

‘On Monday morning, a mid-level staff member, who does not regularly have contact with the President, received a positive result for a COVID-19 test,’ Psaki said in a statement. ‘Three days earlier, on Friday, that staff member had spent approximately 30 minutes in proximity to the President on Air Force One, on the way from Orange, South Carolina to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.’ 

President Joe Biden spent around 30 minutes with the staffer on board Air Force One after delivering the commencement address at South Carolina State University. He was traveling to Philadelphia to spend the weekend in Wilmington, Delaware 

White House press secretary Jen Psaki sent out a statement Monday night about the president’s exposure to a now COVID-positive staffer after being asked about it in the briefing room Monday afternoon 

The aide was vaccinated and boosted and received a negative COVID test Friday before boarding Air Force One.  

‘As CDC guidance does not require fully vaccinated people to quarantine after an exposure, the President will continue with his daily schedule,’ Psaki said. 

Biden addressed the nation and did a Q&A with reporters Tuesday afternoon.  

The admission was previewed at Monday’s press briefing when a New York Times reporter asked the press secretary if Biden was in quarantine. 

‘Has there been an outbreak of COVID at the White House, the NSC, the State Department and at the Treasury? And has the president been in close contact with a COVID-positive person and thus in need of quarantine?’ journalist Michael Shear asked. 

Psaki answered, ‘The president has a full schedule today and is not in need of quarantine.’ 

‘We will provide information to all of you as outlined with our commitment from just a few months ago about being transparent about close contacts,’ Psaki said. ‘I don’t have any updates to you at this time,’ she added.  

She said breakthrough cases of COVID should be expected ‘across the country.’ 

‘And certainly within the federal government,’ she said. 

Psaki said 99 per cent of the White House staff was vaccinated and that aides have been advised to get booster shots. 

‘We have a very thorough process here that people abide by, that are going to have close contact with the president and even beyond that,’ she said. ‘And those protocols go above and beyond CDC guidelines.’  

The 79-year-old Biden received his booster shot of Pfizer in September. 

The White House has tried to prevent Biden from following in his predecessor’s footsteps and contracting COVID-19. 

Former President Donald Trump had COVID and was hospitalized for it in October 2020, just weeks before the presidential election. 

Earlier this month, Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, revealed in his book that Trump received a positive test days before he publicly acknowledged he had the disease. 

Since another COVID test Trump took that day was negative, the then-president continued with this schedule, including participating in the first presidential debate with Biden in Cleveland and traveling to several campaign rallies. 

Meadows pushed back on the media buzz over the admission by saying he believed Trump’s test was a ‘false positive.’ 

Omicron now accounts for 73 percent of new cases in the US and pushes Europe to the brink of fresh lockdowns, with Wales the latest to announce harsh new restrictions set to kick in on Boxing Day, a British holiday celebrated the day after Christmas.

New York, Georgia and Texas are all seeing major surges in new COVID cases, which are up more than 100 percent in the past two weeks in those states. Florida now leads the nation with cases up 371 percent in the past two weeks.

The nation is currently averaging 148,384 new cases daily over the past week, a 23 percent increase from two weeks ago. Confirmed Omicron cases increased by 19 percent day-over-day, up to 1,781 as of Wednesday morning from 1,485 on Tuesday, but that number represents only the tiny fraction of infections that are DNA sequenced.

Deaths have stabilized, with America averaging around 1,300 deaths per day – a steady figure for the past week and down slightly from two weeks ago. Encouraging new data from a leaked British study suggests that Omicron infections are less severe than prior variants.

Meanwhile, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky appeared to contradict Biden by insisting that the current surge in cases was expected, after Biden said on Tuesday that ‘the Omicron virus spread even more rapidly than anybody thought.’