US President Joe Biden has tested positive for Covid-19, forcing him to cancel a planned speech hosted by a Latino group in Las Vegas on Wednesday.
Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said Biden had “mild symptoms” and would be returning to Delaware to “self-isolate”. He would continue to carry out his “duties as president during that time”, she said.
Biden’s illness comes amid a growing backlash from within his own Democratic party at his ability to continue campaigning for a second term in the White House, amid concerns about his physical and mental fitness to stay in the race.
Biden has vowed to carry on with his re-election effort but this week told BET, a television network, that if he had “some medical condition that emerged” he might reconsider.
As he boarded Air Force One for the flight from Nevada to Delaware, Biden said “I feel good” and gave reporters a thumbs up. In a note released by the White House, the president’s doctor said he was suffering from “general malaise”, with a runny nose and cough.
Footage of the president boarding the plane showed him moving very slowly up the stairs into the aircraft.
“He felt okay for his first event of the day, but given that he was not feeling better, point-of-care testing for Covid-19 was conducted, and the results were positive for the Covid-19 virus,” the doctor’s note said, adding that he had received the first dose of Paxlovid, an oral antiviral drug to treat Covid-19 that is commonly administered to elderly and high-risk patients.