‘Better than I sound,’ Biden says
On mend from covid, president meets economic advisers
WASHINGTON — Covid-19 symptoms left President Joe Biden with a raspy voice and cough as he met Friday via videoconference with his top economic team. But the president tried to strike a reassuring tone, declaring, “I feel much better than I sound.”
Biden took off a mask and sipped water as he opened the meeting to discuss the decline in gas prices in recent weeks. Reporters were allowed into a White House auditorium to view a few minutes of the proceedings, and when they asked how Biden was feeling, he flashed a thumbs up.
The president’s doctors said his mild covid symptoms were improving and he was responding well to treatment, as the White House worked to portray the image of a president still on the job despite his illness. He received his presidential daily security briefing via video call.
Biden had an elevated temperature of 99.4 F on Thursday, but that went down with Tylenol, according to a new note from Dr. Kevin O’Connor, the president’s personal physician. Biden also used an inhaler a few times but hasn’t experienced shortness of breath.
The president completed his first full day of Paxlovid, the antiviral therapy treatment meant to reduce the severity of covid. His primary symptoms were a runny nose, fatigue and a loose cough. Other metrics, such as pulse, blood pressure, respiratory rate and oxygen saturation were normal, O’Connor said.
“The president is doing better,” White House covid-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha, who spoke to the president via video call, said during a Friday briefing with reporters.
Jha said Biden will remain in isolation in the White House living quarters for five days and then be tested anew. He plans to return to work once he tests negative.
Once Biden tested positive Thursday, the White House sprung into action, aiming to dispel any notion of a crisis and turn his diagnosis into what Biden Chief of Staff Ron Klain said he hoped would be a “teachable moment.”
The White House released a photo Friday of Biden masked in the Treaty Room of the president’s residence on the phone with his national security advisers.
Jha said his hoarse voice might actually be a sign that he is improving rather than the alternative. Conveying that sentiment wasn’t always easy, though.
In the two briefings since the president’s diagnosis, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has repeatedly parried with reporters over specifics.
She bristled at suggestions the Biden administration wasn’t being much more forthcoming with information about the president’s illness than that of his predecessor, Donald Trump.
Jean-Pierre said 17 people were determined to have been in close contact with Biden when he might have been contagious, including members of his senior staff. None have tested positive, she said.
First lady Jill Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were also in close contact with Biden, and Klain said he was too, but the White House hasn’t released the names of the others, citing privacy concerns.
Biden’s case is being prioritized, and Jha said Friday it’ll likely be next week for sequencing to determine which variant of the virus Biden contracted. Omicron’s highly contagious BA.5 substrain is responsible for 78% of new covid-19 infections reported in the U.S. last week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s latest data released Tuesday.