White House attempts to use Biden’s Covid diagnosis as ‘teachable moment’

For more than a year, Joe Biden’s ability to avoid the coronavirus seemed to defy the odds. When he finally did test positive, the White House was ready. It set out to turn the diagnosis into a “teachable moment” and dispel any notion of a crisis.

“The president does what every other person in America does every day, which is he takes reasonable precautions against Covid but does his job,” the White House chief of staff, Ron Klain, told MSNBC late in the afternoon on Thursday.

On Friday, the White House Covid coordinator, Dr Ashish Jha, said on Biden is “doing just fine” and continued to have mild symptoms of Covid-19 as of Thursday night.

Jha, in a CNN interview, said he would check in again on the president’s condition on Friday and that the White House and Biden’s physician would continue to provide updates.

The White House has issued repeated assurances that the president was hard at work while isolating in the residential areas of the White House with “very mild symptoms” including a runny nose, dry cough and fatigue.

Biden, in a blazer and Oxford shirt, recorded a video from the White House balcony telling people: “I’m doing well, getting a lot of work done. And, in the meantime, thanks for your concern. And keep the faith. It’s going to be OK.”

“Keeping busy!” he also tweeted.

On Friday, Biden was scheduled to meet virtually with his economic team and senior advisors to discuss congressional priorities.

It was all part of an administration effort to shift the narrative from a health scare to a display of Biden as the personification of the idea that most Americans can get Covid and recover without too much suffering and disruption if they’ve gotten their shots and taken other important steps to protect themselves.

The message was crafted to alleviate voters’ concerns about Biden’s health – at 79, he’s the oldest person ever to be president. And it was aimed at demonstrating to the country that the pandemic is far less of a threat than it was before Biden took office, thanks to widespread vaccines and new therapeutic drugs.

Biden’s first-day symptoms were mild in large part because he’s fully vaccinated and boosted, according to a statement issued by his physician, Dr Kevin O’Connor. Biden also is taking Paxlovid, an antiviral drug designed to reduce the severity of the disease.

Jha said Biden’s case was being prioritized, meaning it will probably take less than a week for sequencing to determine which variant of the virus Biden contracted. Omicron’s highly contagious BA.5 sub-strain now makes up more than 65% of US cases.

Jean-Pierre said the first lady, Jill Biden, was in close contact with the president, but she declined to discuss others who also might have been exposed, citing privacy reasons. Biden had traveled to Massachusetts a day earlier to promote efforts to combat climate change and flew on Air Force One with several Democratic leaders, including Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren.

A White House official confirmed that Vice-President Kamala Harris was also in close contact with Biden, and Klain said he was too.

Klain, who called the president’s testing positive a “teachable moment” for the country, said the White House wasn’t aware of any positive Covid results that were linked to the president’s case.