First Lady Jill Biden Tests Positive for COVID Again

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 24, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- After testing negative for COVID-19 and leaving isolation last Sunday, First Lady Jill Biden again tested positive for the virus on Wednesday.

"After testing negative on Tuesday, just now, the First Lady has tested positive for COVID-19 by antigen testing," the First Lady's Deputy Communications Director Kelsey Donohue said in a statement. "This represents a “rebound” positivity."

"The First Lady has experienced no reemergence of symptoms, and will remain in Delaware where she has reinitiated isolation procedures," Donohue added. "The White House Medical Unit has conducted contact tracing and close contacts have been notified."

Biden had returned to public life on Sunday, after isolating on Kiawah Island, S.C., where she first tested positive while vacationing there with her husband, President Joe Biden, and their family, the Associated Press reported. He contracted COVID last month and also suffered a rebound case after taking the antiviral pill Paxlovid in early August. Jill Biden was fully vaccinated and boosted, and she was also prescribed Paxlovid and isolated for five days after her first positive test the week before.

"After testing negative for COVID-19 on Monday during her regular testing cadence, the First Lady began to develop cold-like symptoms late in the evening," Biden's communications director Elizabeth Alexander said in a statement at the time of her first positive test. "She tested negative again on a rapid antigen test, but a PCR test came back positive."

The First Lady's symptoms were mild the first time around.

According to the AP, the Bidens had been vacationing in South Carolina since Aug. 10.

President Biden only recently recovered from his own mild case of COVID-19, and also experienced a "rebound" case during the course of his illness, after testing positive a second time.

More information

Find out more about COVID-19 at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

SOURCES: Office of the First Lady, statement, Aug. 24, 2022; Associated Press

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