Vice President Kamala Harris tests positive for COVID-19 after California visit
.jpg "U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at Vandenberg Space Force Base near Lompoc on Monday, April 18, 2022.")
Vice President Kamala Harris became the highest ranking Biden administration official to come down with COVID-19 on Tuesday after she tested positive for the virus following a trip to her home state of California.
A spokeswoman for the vice president said Harris was exhibiting no symptoms but received a positive result on a routine coronavirus test following her return. Harris arrived in Washington on Monday evening and tested positive on Tuesday morning, the spokeswoman said.
Harris will “isolate and continue to work from the Vice President’s residence,” a statement from the vice president’s Press Secretary Kirsten Allen said.
The vice president has not been in close contact with President Joe Biden or first lady Jill Biden since her return, her spokeswoman said. Biden and Harris traveled separately to the West Coast last week. Biden returned to his personal residence in Wilmington, Delaware, while Harris, who had been in Los Angeles and San Francisco for political and official events, stayed in California over the weekend.
Harris’ spokeswoman said in the statement announcing the vice president’s positive test that Harris would follow “CDC guidelines and the advice of her physicians.”
“The Vice President will return to the White House when she tests negative,” Allen said.
The former California senator and attorney general, who became vice president in January 2021, had been scheduled to receive the President’s Daily Brief in the Oval Office alongside Biden this morning.
A White House official said Tuesday afternoon that Biden and Harris spoke by phone after her diagnosis. “He wanted to check in and make sure she has everything she needs as she quarantines at home,” the official said in a statement.
Last month, second gentleman Douglas Emhoff, Harris’ husband, tested positive for the virus. At the time, the vice president tested negative. Emhoff told McClatchy in an interview this month that he was “very careful” after his positive test and isolated for 10 days at the official residence of the vice president.
“Because, imagine not wanting to give — not only my wife, but the vice president of the United States — COVID,” Emhoff said. “She fortunately did not get it.”
Harris has received two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine and got a booster in October.
This story was originally published April 26, 2022 at 10:01 AM with the headline "Vice President Kamala Harris tests positive for COVID-19 after California visit."
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