Biden tests positive for COVID, cancels Las Vegas campaign event

United States President Joe Biden has tested positive for COVID-19, forcing him to cancel a campaign event in Las Vegas, as pressure builds on him to drop his re-election bid because of his age.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Wednesday that Biden, 81, was experiencing “mild symptoms” and will fly to his home in Delaware, where he will “self-isolate and continue to carry out all of his duties fully”.

Jean-Pierre said Biden planned to spend a long weekend at his Delaware beach house. It was unclear how long the sickness would keep him from the campaign trail.

Minutes after the announcement, the president’s motorcade was on the move to the Las Vegas airport, and as he boarded Air Force One, Biden told reporters: “Good, I feel good.”

Dr Kevin O’Connor, the president’s physician, said in a note that Biden “presented this afternoon with upper respiratory symptoms, to include rhinorrhea [runny nose] and non-productive cough, with general malaise”.

After the positive COVID-19 test, Biden was prescribed the antiviral drug Paxlovid and has taken his first dose, O’Connor said.

News of Biden’s illness had first been shared by the CEO of Unidos US, a Latin civil rights group, in Las Vegas. Biden had been slated to speak at the group’s convention on Wednesday afternoon as part of an effort to rally Hispanic voters ahead of the November election.

Janet Murguia, the CEO of Unidos, told guests that the president had sent his regrets and could not appear because he tested positive for the virus.

“He said to tell my folks that we’re not going to get rid of him that quickly. We’re going to have a chance to hear from him in the future directly,” she said.

There were groans in the conference room at the news.

‘Serious concerns’

The president’s diagnosis comes amid intense scrutiny of his health and stamina after a disastrous debate with former President Donald Trump that sparked a flurry of concern among Democrats that Biden is not up to the rigours of winning another presidential term.

The ABC News broadcaster reported on Wednesday that the leader of the Democrats in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, told Biden it would be better for the country and the party if he ended his re-election campaign. ABC News also said the leader of the Democrats in the House, Hakeem Jeffries, has also expressed similar views directly to Biden.

In a statement, Schumer’s office called the report “idle speculation” and said Schumer “conveyed the views of his caucus directly to President Biden on Saturday”.

Earlier on Wednesday, Democratic US Representative Adam Schiff became the 20th congressional Democrat to publicly call for Biden to drop out of the race.

“While the choice to withdraw from the campaign is President Biden’s alone, I believe it is time for him to pass the torch,” Schiff said in a statement. “And in doing so, secure his legacy of leadership by allowing us to defeat Donald Trump in the upcoming election.”

A poll released by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research on Wednesday showed that nearly two-thirds of Democrats believed Biden should drop out of the race and allow the party to choose a new candidate.

Only about three in 10 Democrats also said they were extremely or very confident that Biden has the mental capability to serve effectively as president, down slightly from 40 percent that said the same in a February poll.

Still, The Associated Press news agency and other US media outlets have reported that Democrats are looking to hold a virtual vote to formally make Biden the nominee in the first week of August. That’s ahead of the Democratic National Convention, which is being held in Chicago from August 19 to 22 and is typically where the party’s presidential nominee would be confirmed.

Biden meanwhile has been defiant in the face of the calls to quit the race, telling one interviewer that only the “Lord Almighty” could persuade him to go.

Al Jazeera’s John Hendren, reporting from Washington, DC, said the timing of Biden’s illness “could not be worse” for the president and said it was critical that the White House “be crystal clear” about his health.

“That’s because there is a big concern around the country that Biden’s mental and physical condition has been hidden from the public, that he’s been concealed among a small group of aides, and that for a very long time he wasn’t doing major freewheeling network interviews, and that he wasn’t on the road in a major way until recently,” Hendren said.

The US leader last tested positive for COVID-19 twice in the summer of 2022, when he had a primary case and a rebound case of the virus.

Biden has been vaccinated and is currently on his recommended annual booster dose for COVID-19. The vaccines have proven highly effective at limiting serious illness and death from the virus, which killed more than a million people in the US since the pandemic began in 2020.

Paxlovid has been proven to curtail the chances of serious illness and death from COVID-19 when prescribed in the early days of an infection, but has also been associated with rebound infections, where the virus comes back a few days after clearing up.

Health officials have reported recent upticks in emergency room visits and hospitalisations from COVID-19. There has also been a pronounced increase in positive test results in much of the country – particularly the southwestern US.