The White House said Tuesday that a fully vaccinated staff member tested positive for the novel coronavirus on the same day that someone on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s team tested positive for the virus, according to The Washington Post.
How did a member of Pelosi’s team get COVID-19?
The staff member on Pelosi’s team met with Texas lawmakers, who are in Washington to avoid passing a bill in their state about voting rights, which I wrote about for the Deseret News. Six of the members on that team tested positive for COVID-19 recently.
Did Nancy Pelosi get COVID-19?
It doesn’t appear so. Drew Hammill, Pelosi’s deputy chief of staff, said in a statement that the staff member had no contact with Pelosi, according to Axios.
- “The entire press office is working remotely today with the exception of individuals who have had no exposure to the individual or have had a recent negative test. Our office will continue to follow the guidance of the Office of Attending Physician closely.”
Does President Joe Biden have COVID-19?
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday that the White House staff member who tested positive is not at the White House. The infected team member will take more tests to monitor their COVID-19 situation. The staff member did not meet with the president or White House staff members.
- “We know there will be breakthrough cases but as this incident shows, cases in vaccinated individuals are typically mild,” she said, according to The Washington Post.
How do fully vaccinated people get COVID-19?
Breakthrough COVID-19 cases should be expected, as I wrote for the Deseret News. Dr. Esther Choo, professor of emergency medicine at Oregon Health and Science University, said on Yahoo Finance Live that we will see a high number of breakthrough COVID-19 cases among the fully vaccinated because the vaccine isn’t perfect.
- “There’s a lot of talk about how people are getting COVID anyway, even though they’re vaccinated, and that is true and that is expected because there’s no vaccine that’s 100% all the time,” Choo told Yahoo Finance Live.
- “So we are seeing these breakthrough cases,” she said. “Many of them are asymptomatic, totally without symptoms, and they’re getting tested as part of contact tracing or other screening so that they can go on to certain activities or they have very mild symptoms.”