Vice president Kamala Harris has tested positive for Covid-19, underscoring the persistence of the highly contagious virus even as the US eases restrictions in a bid to revert to pre-pandemic normality.
Ms Harris’s press secretary Kirsten Allen said neither President Joe Biden nor first lady Jill Biden was considered a “close contact” of the vice president in recent days.
Because of their travel schedules, the last time Ms Harris saw Mr Biden was on Monday April 18.
The vice president recently returned from a week-long trip to the west coast.
Ms Harris tested positive on both rapid and PCR tests but “has exhibited no symptoms”, the White House said.
She will isolate at her residence but continue to work remotely, and will return to the White House only when she tests negative for the virus.
Ms Harris, 57, received her first dose of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine weeks before taking office and a second dose just days after Inauguration Day in 2021.
She received a booster shot in late October and an additional booster on April 1.
Fully vaccinated and boosted people have a high degree of protection against serious illness and death from Covid-19, particularly from the most common and highly transmissible Omicron variant.
Ms Harris’s diagnosis comes a month after her husband, Doug Emhoff, recovered from the virus, as a wave of cases of the highly transmissible Omicron subvariant has spread through Washington’s political class, infecting cabinet members, White House staff and legislators including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Ms Allen said Ms Harris would follow Centres for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines “and the advice of her physicians”.
It was not immediately clear whether she is being prescribed any antiviral treatments.
After more than two years and nearly a million deaths in the US, the virus is still killing more than 300 people a day in the US, according to the CDC.
The unvaccinated are at a far greater risk, more than three times as likely to test positive and 20 times as likely to die from the virus than those who have received at least a primary dose of the vaccines, according to the public health agency.
