US First Lady Jill Biden has again tested positive for the coronavirus, coming down with a “rebound” infection just days after she recovered from a previous Covid case and ended a voluntary quarantine.
The first lady’s deputy communications director Kelsey Donohue announced the news on Wednesday, saying that despite testing negative for the virus the day prior, Biden had since tested positive in an antigen screening, calling it a “rebound” case.
“The first lady has experienced no reemergence of symptoms, and will remain in Delaware where she has reinitiated isolation procedures,” Donohue said, adding that the White House Medical Unit has traced her contacts and notified those close to her.
After first contracting Covid-19 in mid-August, Jill Biden’s office said she had tested negative multiple times and would end a period of isolation on Sunday, when she left South Carolina to join the president in their home state of Delaware.
The 71-year-old first lady quarantined for five days in South Carolina while experiencing “cold-like symptoms,” despite having received a total of four vaccine doses, including two booster shots.
President Joe Biden himself tested positive for Covid back in July, and later had a similar “rebound” case which his doctor attributed to the antiviral drug Paxlovid. While the first lady was given the same treatment for her initial infection, so far the White House has not linked her rebound case to the medication.