WASHINGTON — Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., announced Thursday that he tested positive for Covid as cases of the highly transmissible omicron variant spike in Congress and the Biden administration.
Coons said in a statement he has “minimal symptoms so far and am optimistic I will recover well after isolating and following CDC guidelines.”
“Like millions of other families, it seems we’ll also be wrestling with another holiday spent on Zoom and cancelled plans for travel or gathering,” said Coons, who received the positive test Wednesday evening.
Days earlier, the White House said President Joe Biden had been in close contact with a White House staffer who later tested positive. Biden tested negative for Covid on Wednesday, the White House said in an email to reporters.
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A spokesman for Coons said he has not been with the president, formerly a Delaware senator himself, in the last week.
Omicron has overtaken the delta strain as the dominant variant, causing more than 73 percent of new cases in the country, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Separately, seven members of the traveling and advance staff who accompanied Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks on a domestic trip last week tested positive for Covid, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said in a statement.
The group visited Selfridge Air National Guard Base in Michigan, Northern Command and Space Command in Colorado, Indo-Pacific Command in Hawaii, Naval Base Coronado in California, and Strategic Command in Nebraska, according to a Pentagon release.
The first positive test from the trip came back on Monday of this week. Hicks and members of her immediate personal staff have tested negative, Kirby said.
A string of lawmakers have announced that they too have tested positive for Covid in recent days. They include House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., Reps. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., and Anthony Delgado, D-N.Y., who announced their positive tests Wednesday. Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., as well as Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., said separately on Sunday that they had tested positive amid the rapidly spreading pandemic wave.
Frank Thorp V contributed.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
