House Speaker Pelosi tests positive for virus

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California tested positive for the coronavirus, her office said Thursday, the latest high-profile official to do so as the virus spreads through Washington.

Drew Hammill, a spokesman for Pelosi, said she was asymptomatic, and had previously been vaccinated and boosted. He added that Pelosi, 82, had tested negative earlier this week.

Lawmakers and their staffs on Capitol Hill were informed on March 30 that they were now allowed to receive a second booster dose if they met the criteria, after federal health officials cleared them for many people the day before. Pelosi received her second booster last month, according to her office, and it takes about a week for the immune system to ramp up. It is difficult to know exactly how someone was exposed to and infected with the virus.

“The speaker is fully vaccinated and boosted, and is thankful for the robust protection the vaccine has provided,” Hammill said, adding that she would isolate consistent with guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The speaker “encourages everyone to get vaccinated, boosted and test regularly,” he said.

Pelosi, who is second in the line of succession to the presidency after Vice President Kamala Harris, was among the lawmakers who appeared maskless with President Joe Biden at a bill-signing ceremony at the White House on Wednesday.

On Thursday, the White House said Biden tested negative Wednesday evening, and despite interactions in recent days and Pelosi’s presence at White House events, she was not considered a close contact of the president, defined by the CDC as someone less than 6 feet away for more than 15 minutes over a 24-hour period. Biden would continue to be tested regularly, the White House said.

At a news briefing Thursday, Jen Psaki, Biden’s press secretary, said that there were “incredibly stringent protocols” at the White House that went beyond CDC guidelines. “Every member of the staff is on a regular testing protocol,” she said. “If you’re going to see him in person, whether you were traveling with him or you’re meeting in the Oval Office, you will be tested.”

Pelosi’s positive test came just before her weekly news conference, which was subsequently canceled. Hammill said a planned congressional delegation to Asia, which Pelosi had been scheduled to lead, would be postponed.

A string of positive coronavirus tests in Washington has been reported among top officials who attended the Gridiron Club dinner, an annual black-tie roast between journalists and presidential administrations held over the weekend. Two Biden administration officials, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and Attorney General Merrick Garland, said Wednesday that they had tested positive for the virus.

But Pelosi did not attend the dinner, her office said Thursday. Biden also did not attend the Gridiron, but he has appeared, mask-free, at several events this week.

This week, Reps. Joaquin Castro of Texas and Adam Schiff of California, both Democrats, said they had tested positive after attending the Gridiron. Other Democrats who did not attend the dinner have announced positive tests, including Rep. Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, the assistant House speaker, and Rep. Scott Peters of California.

Another Washington, D.C., politician, Muriel Bowser, the mayor, said on Twitter on Thursday that she tested positive a day earlier and was experiencing mild symptoms.

Journalists and administration officials who attended other recent parties and events have also reported that they had contracted the virus.