Yes, President Biden is almost 80, but he’s vaxxed, double boosted, on Paxlovid, and he’s surrounded by the best doctors. Based on what we know so far, he’s probably going to recover just fine from his Covid-19 infection after a week or two. Studies indicate that senior citizens who have two boosters have dramatically better rates of survival and avoiding hospitalization.
The White House’s coronavirus coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha told CNN that Biden had a runny nose and dry cough and is experiencing some fatigue.
I am curious about when Biden caught the virus. His most recent negative test was Tuesday, but tests can be mistaken; if it is early in the infection, the patient’s nasal passages may not have enough of the virus to generate a positive result. Biden came back from his Middle East trip at 1 a.m. Sunday, and had no public events for three days. As noted yesterday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre somewhat implausibly claimed Tuesday, “he’s just been very busy dealing with the issues of the American people and meeting with his staff, and senior staff, the last two days.”
It always seemed more likely that the elderly president was out of the public eye because he was exhausted from a five-day overseas trip. But what if the president’s post-trip fatigue was the onset of his Covid-19 infection?
It’s also worth noting that throughout 2020 and in particular in 2021, some of us argued, again and again, that catching Covid-19 did not represent a moral failing or a sign that someone was being reckless. It’s an extremely contagious virus, and most of us are not antisocial shut-ins. Sooner or later, you’re going to interact with someone who’s carrying it. A lot of people saw their infection-free status as a sign of their moral superiority and wise judgment; as one woman who found herself infected after a trip to Disneyland described to NPR, “I did start crying, because it was like, we did everything right.”
When one of the most protected human beings on earth catches Covid, it’s a reminder that just about anyone can catch Covid, and sooner or later, just about everyone will catch Covid. As a virologist tells David Wallace-Wells writes in a well-timed op-ed in the New York Times today, “I think it’s better to acknowledge that we’re at 98 percent of the population having immunity of some form — certainly over 95 percent. There’s not much more that could change in that regard.” Our imperfect official figures put the U.S. at more than 91 million cases of Covid. It was never wise or accurate to characterize a Covid infection as a moral failing or consequence of bad judgment. Now that characterization looks absurd.