On Tuesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to President Biden, announced that he has tested positive for COVID-19 and is experiencing symptoms.
Fauci, who also serves as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is fully vaccinated and has been boosted twice.
“Dr. Fauci will isolate and continue to work from his home,” the National Institute for Health said in a press release. “He has not recently been in close contact with President Biden or other senior government officials. Dr. Fauci will follow the COVID-19 guidelines of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and medical advice from his physician and return to the NIH when he tests negative.”
The news comes as COVID-19 cases are again surging in the United States. After falling below 30,000 new cases per day in March and April, the average number of new daily cases has been over 100,000 since the end of May.
However, as noted by The New York Times, deaths from the virus “remain low. Fewer than 350 deaths are being reported each day, the Times database shows, down from more than 2,600 a day at the height of the Omicron surge.”
Despite the low number of deaths, many Democrat politicians are using the opportunity to extend their emergency powers. New York Governor Kathy Hochul, for example, announced this week that she would be extending her emergency powers until mid-July so the New York state government could “support the municipalities and counties in their efforts to facilitate and administer vaccinations and tests for COVID-19, and to prevent the virus from continuing to spread at such rates.”
