Biden, nonetheless rebounding, stays COVID optimistic Sunday, extends isolation

President Joe Biden examined optimistic for COVID once more on Sunday—this after testing optimistic Saturday in what the White Home known as a “rebound” case of the virus.

The president will proceed the isolation he resumed Saturday, certainly one of his physicians, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, wrote in a letter launched Sunday by the White Home. He stated the outcomes of the check have been unsurprising.

On Sunday Biden tweeted a video of Secretary of Veteran Affairs Denis McDonough delivering pizzas to supporters of burn pit laws gathered on the Capitol on Saturday. Biden was scheduled to ship the pizza himself however was prevented by his COVID rebound. As a substitute, he met with supporters through FaceTime as McDonough held the cellphone.

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Biden—who initially examined optimistic July 21, after per week of touring throughout the Center East—examined destructive for the virus on Tuesday evening and once more on Wednesday morning of this previous week, when he ended his isolation.

He moreover examined destructive Thursday and Friday mornings earlier than testing optimistic once more Saturday morning, in response to a letter from presidential doctor Dr. Kevin O’Connor to White Home Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, obtained and posted to Twitter by a Reuters correspondent.

On Saturday the president stated through Twitter that he would return to isolation even if he’s not experiencing new signs.

“Of us, immediately I examined optimistic for COVID once more,” he wrote. “I’ve acquired no signs, however I’m going to isolate for the protection of everybody round me. I’m nonetheless at work, and might be again on the highway quickly.”

‘Rebound COVID,’ Paxlovid and in any other case

Biden was handled with the COVID-19 antiviral Paxlovid the day he was identified, in response to multiple news outlets. It’s a tablet accepted for remedy of COVID-19 in high-risk adults just like the aged, having acquired emergency-use authorization from the U.S. Meals and Drug Administration.

However the drug is thought for “rebound” circumstances, referred to by the U.S. Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention as “a quick return of signs.”

Such rebounds, nonetheless, can occur with or with out Paxlovid, Andy Pekosz, virologist on the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Faculty of Public Well being, informed Fortune on Saturday.

“It’s not unusual for individuals to have a optimistic check just a few days after a destructive check with COVID-19,” he stated. “What I believe persons are extra centered on today is that if this can be a Paxlovid rebound, which means he’ll have a recurrence of the virus.”

Whereas the U.S. Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention says that COVID rebounds are uncommon, they may very well be extra widespread than we all know, as most people with COVID cease testing after they obtain a destructive consequence.

“The White Home does an excellent job of testing individuals every day,” Pekosz stated. “They’re more likely to catch a few of these uncommon issues with that stage of frequency.”

The president’s rebound optimistic check was an antigen, or speedy, check, O’Connor wrote. Antigen assessments are superior in terms of gauging whether or not or not somebody is shedding reside virus and, due to this fact, infectious, Pekosz stated, including {that a} optimistic antigen check is “most likely a great cause to return into isolation.”

Fauci’s Paxlovid rebound

When identified with COVID in June, chief presidential medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci was prescribed the antiviral because of his superior age, which put him at larger threat for a extreme final result from COVID, regardless of being totally vaccinated and twice boosted.

Fauci later stated he had skilled a Paxlovid rebound.

“After I completed the 5 days of Paxlovid, I reverted to destructive on an antigen check for 3 days in a row,” Fauci, 81, stated throughout an occasion at Foreign Policy’s Global Health Forum, Bloomberg reported. “After which on the fourth day, simply to be completely sure, I examined myself once more.”

“I reverted again to optimistic.”

Fauci later informed the New York Times that Paxlovid saved him out of the hospital and stopped his an infection from turning into extra extreme initially, saying, “Paxlovid did what it was purported to do.”

Fauci started a second course of Paxlovid when signs emerged “a lot worse than the primary go-around,” he stated. In Might the CDC issued a well being advisory about such rebounds, saying there was no proof that extra remedy is required for rebound circumstances.

In June, Pfizer, which manufactures Paxlovid, introduced that it will cease including new contributors to a trial of the drug amongst COVID sufferers at low threat of hospitalization and demise. The examine did not exhibit that the drug lowered signs, or hospitalizations and deaths, in a statistically vital means, in response to Bloomberg.

However Paxlovid could also be undeservedly gaining a foul rap, Pekosz cautioned.

“I’ll nonetheless level to the truth that it’s working when it comes to holding individuals out of the hospital—that’s a very powerful factor proper now,” he stated, including that it might have to be retooled to higher tackle Omicron subvariants.

How lengthy to quarantine?

The CDC at present advises COVID-positive people to quarantine for 5 days earlier than returning to regular life (and masking in public for an extra 5 days). The really helpful isolation time was 10 days till December, when the federal well being company halved it.

However “there’s not knowledge to assist 5 days or something shorter than 10 days,” Amy Barczak, a doctor on the Massachusetts Common Hospital Infectious Illness Division, recently told Nature.

Some scientists have questioned the rationale behind the coverage for the reason that CDC launched it late final yr. And now critics have extra knowledge to again up their claims: Viral shedding can happen past 10 days in even wholesome, vaccinated adults, in response to a preprint out of London published this month.

Some scientists advise that folks cease quarantining solely as soon as they check destructive utilizing at-home assessments, fairly than counting on the CDC’s five-day rule alone.

Biden did so, nonetheless, testing destructive at 5 after which six days after an infection earlier than ending his isolation. The White Home had said that Biden would go “above and past” the CDC’s five-day steering and wait till he examined destructive earlier than returning to public life.

He apparently wasn’t anticipating a rebound.