President Joe Biden was forced to pause his 2024 presidential crusade after being diagnosed with COVID-19, amid tensions among Democrats over whether the 81-year-old will still run for office.
Biden canceled his participation in an event in Las Vegas after testing positive for the disease on Wednesday.
Biden posted on X, formerly Twitter, that he “feels smart” and thanked others for their well wishes. She added that she will “continue to work to get work done for the American people. “
As Biden recovers in Delaware, the incident has increased the visibility of the disease more than a year after the United States officially declared an end to the public health emergency.
Newsweek looked at what knowledge says about the prevalence of the disease across the country as the president rests.
Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suspended some of its knowledge about the coronavirus last year, it still produces weekly data on trends in testing, hospitalizations and deaths from the disease across the United States.
Testing data shows that the consistent percentage of positive results has increased every week since April 20, when the test positivity rate was 3. 1 percent. As of July 6, it was 11 percent.
This buildup has not been noticed since last year, after the United States ended the public fitness emergency. This would make sense, since society has regained its pre-pandemic freedoms, bringing more people together, coinciding with the beginning of summer and the disease continues to circulate, although it is less contagious.
Earlier this month, the CDC estimated that COVID infections were expanding or likely expanding in forty-five states, with a national state replication rate of 1. 14 as of July 8. The replication rate is a way of measuring the number of people inflamed with the virus. most likely to infect. If the number is greater than one, it means that the number of instances will increase.
However, it also indicates that the increases start from very low levels in May, when at any time they had decreased since March 2020.
The most prevalent variant according to the latest data is KP. 3, which is part of a group of variants called “FLiRT”, due to the position of mutations in its spike proteins. It is this variant that has been linked to the “summer wave” that is building up in COVID cases.
Adrian Esterman, an epidemiologist and professor of biostatistics at the University of South Australia, previously told Newsweek that KP. 3 has another mutation called F456L located on the spike protein.
“This mutation allows the virus to attach more smoothly to our ACE2 receptors (this is called binding affinity), which makes it more infectious. That’s why KP. 3 is starting to dominate now. “
While the existing vaccine provides cross-immunity unlike the FLiRT variant, a new vaccine that will be available in September likely offers greater protection, experts say. Although viruses can evolve quickly, FLiRT variants are not thought to cause serious symptoms.
According to the CDC, symptoms of COVID-19 to watch for are:
Weekly COVID-related deaths have decreased dramatically since the peak of the pandemic. CDC figures for the week of June 29, 2024 show 259 deaths, up from nearly 26,000 in early January 2021.
The threat of campaigning, with Biden interacting with citizens and leaders from across the country and time zones, is inevitably a greater threat than others of contracting ailments along the way.
This isn’t the first time the president has succumbed to a virus on the campaign trail, as his participation in the debate against Donald Trump last month was partly attributed to a cold.
Your age may also play a role in susceptibility and recovery. Older patients are at higher risk of morbidity and mortality from COVID-19. The Mayo Clinic reports that, as of March 2024, 76% of all COVID-19 deaths occurred in other people 65 and older.
In the past, Biden had tested positive for BA. 5 COVID-19 in July 2022 and had mild symptoms in his first infection.
He tested positive later that month as part of a “rebound” infection that can occur when a user is treated with Paxlovid, an oral antiviral tablet that can help treat symptoms of the virus.
Biden received a COVID-19 booster shot in September 2023 in addition to his annual flu shot, according to a White House memo from his Kevin O’Connor.
Washington said he was only experiencing “mild symptoms” and that “this time he would continue to fully perform all of his duties. “
The president’s doctor said in a statement that Biden had a runny nose, unproductive cough and general malaise, adding that he had received his first dose of Paxlovid.
“His symptoms are still mild, his respiratory rate is overall 16, his temperature is overall 97. 8 [F], and his pulse oximetry is overall 97%,” he said.
Newsweek reached out to a media representative in the White House email for comment.
Biden’s illness comes at a possibly inopportune time, with a growing number of Democrats eager to see the president resign in the election.
The COVID diagnosis led others to think Biden was going to drop out of the race. In an interview with BET News on Wednesday, he said he would leave the crusade if a doctor told him he had a “problem. “
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke with Biden amid considerations that he would defeat Trump in November, Array news organizations reported citing anonymous sources.
Both Schumer and Jeffries, the two most level-headed Democrats in Congress, reportedly privately told Biden that they were worried about the president’s chances of winning and that it would be more productive for him to drop out of the race, according to the New York Times and ABCNews. Training
Pelosi also reportedly expressed concern that polls suggest Biden would not win the 2024 election, CNN reported, though none of the sources cited in the report would say whether the California congresswoman in particular said the president would not run for a second term.
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