There’s yet another high-profile rebound case of COVID-19, with first lady Jill Biden back in isolation after testing positive for the virus again.
The White House announced Wednesday that Jill Biden had “a ‘rebound’ positivity’” after testing negative Tuesday. Her office said she “has experienced no reemergence of symptoms, and will remain in Delaware where she has reinitiated isolation procedures,” and that her close contacts have been notified.
President Joe Biden, who recently recovered from his own rebound case of COVID-19, who returned to Washington, D.C., earlier Wednesday from the family’s beach house, has tested negative for the virus but his regular testing will remain at what the White House called an increased level.
The president will also wear a mask for 10 days “when indoors and in close proximity to others,” as recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention because he is a close contact of the first lady, according to the White House.
Jill Biden first developed what were described as cold-like symptoms last week while in South Carolina before testing positive then for COVID-19. She isolated at a private home in South Carolina until Sunday, after two consecutive tests for the virus were negative.
Like the president, she is fully vaccinated against the virus and has had two booster doses of the vaccine. And both the president and the first lady were prescribed Paxlovid, an antiviral treatment for COVID-19 that has caused some who take it to test positive or even experience a resurgence of symptoms.
That’s what happened to the president’s top adviser on the pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci, in June.
CNN reported Fauci, 81, told participants at Foreign Policy’s Global Health Forum that while the treatment did its job by keeping him out of the hospital, after it ended, he “started to feel really poorly, much worse than in the first go around.” Fauci was prescribed a second round of Paxlovid, something not generally recommended.
Dr. Brandon Webb, an Intermountain Healthcare infectious diseases physician, said in July that rebound cases are a rare “inconvenience.” Webb said Paxlovid needs to be prescribed carefully due to potential interactions with many common medications and should be limited to those most at risk of being hospitalized or dying from COVID-19.