President Biden tested positive for the coronavirus again Saturday morning, attributed to the Paxlovid treatment he was taking, but has not had a relapse of symptoms, the White House doctor said.
Mr. Biden “continues to feel quite well,” physician Dr. Kevin K. O’Connor said in a note released by the White House. “As this is the case, there is no reason to resume treatment at this time, but obviously we will continue close monitoring,” he added.
However, the positive test means Mr Biden will resume “strict isolation procedures”, as Dr O’Connor said, in line with medical advice. The White House said he will no longer make a scheduled trip to his home in Wilmington, Delaware, on Sunday or a work trip to Michigan on Tuesday.
Mr. Biden first tested positive for the virus on July 21. After five days of self-isolation, he tested negative on Tuesday night and returned to the Oval Office on Wednesday, saying his relatively mild case demonstrated how much progress had been made in fighting the virus. But doctors have been watching for signs of recovery on Paxlovid and have been testing him every day since then. He tested negative on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday before the positive result on Saturday morning.
The recovery of Paxlovid has become a source of debate among the scientific community and Covid patients. Initial clinical trials suggested that only about 1 to 2 percent of those treated with Paxlovid had symptoms again. A June study, which was not peer-reviewed, found that of 13,644 adults, about 5 percent tested positive again within 30 days and 6 percent had symptoms again.
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But anecdotal accounts of Paxlovid recoveries — including a case involving Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the president’s chief medical adviser — have reverberated widely, leading many to wonder if the reported data is still accurate.
“I think this was predictable,” Dr. Jonathan Reiner, a prominent cardiologist and professor of medicine and surgery at George Washington University Hospital, wrote on Twitter Saturday after the president’s positive test was revealed. “Previous data suggesting Paxlovid ‘bounceback’ positivity in the low single digits is outdated and with BA.5 probably 20-40% or even higher.”
In a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study published last month that examined the drug’s success in protecting people from severe cases of Covid-19, researchers wrote that rebound symptoms are usually milder than what the patient feels during the primary infection and are unlikely to result in hospitalization.
The CDC issued an emergency health advisory in May that said people experiencing recovery “should resume isolation and self-isolate again” for at least five days, mirroring the agency’s general isolation recommendations for people infected with the virus.
The notice also says that recovery does not represent re-infection with the virus or development of resistance to Paxlovid.
Dr. Ashish K. Jha, the White House’s co-ordinator of the Covid-19 response, told reporters when Mr. Biden first tested positive that, looking at Twitter, “it feels like everyone has recovered , but it turns out that there is actually clinical data.”
Large health systems, he said, indicate that rebounds are rare, with the percentage of Paxlovid recipients experiencing them in the “single digits.”
“When people recover, they don’t end up in the hospital,” Dr. Jha said. “They don’t turn out to be very sick.” He added: “Paxlovid works very well to prevent serious disease, rebound or not, and that’s why it was offered. And so the president took it.”
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