Biden set to return to old routine

WASHINGTON－US President Joe Biden told reporters virtually on Monday that he expects to end his medical self-isolation at the White House by the end of the week.

Biden, who tested positive for COVID-19 last week, said he is "feeling great" following a virtual meeting with administration officials, as he recovers from the infection while isolating at the White House and performing his duties online.

"I've had two full nights of sleep, all the way through," he said. "I hope I'm back to work in person by the end of this week."

It was the first time that Biden, 79, had interacted with the media since the White House announced his COVID-19 diagnosis.

Biden's symptoms had "now almost completely resolved", according to a memo from White House physician Kevin O'Connor.

"When questioned, at this point he only notes some residual nasal congestion and minimal hoarseness," O'Connor wrote on Monday.

Fully vaccinated and twice boosted, Biden has been taking Paxlovid, an antiviral therapy produced by Pfizer and given to patients with COVID-19. He will continue to take low-dose aspirin as "an alternative type of blood thinner", O'Connor noted in the memo.

None of Biden's designated 17 close contacts had tested positive for the coronavirus as of Monday, according to White House COVID-19 response coordinator Ashish Jha.

The causative agent for Biden's COVID-19 infection is most likely the BA.5 Omicron variant of the virus, preliminary sequencing results showed.

Biden has been working despite suggestions from some public health commentators that he should take more rest. In remarks delivered to a conference in Florida on Monday, Biden weighed in on the findings from the recent hearings held by the House of Representatives select committee investigating the Capital riot on Jan 6, 2021.

Many Biden administration officials and US lawmakers have contracted COVID-19 over the past months.

On Monday, US senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska tweeted that they had been infected with the virus.

COVID-19 cases, deaths and hospitalizations are on the rise in the US, and the BA.5 subvariant is now the predominant variant in the country, according to the COVID-19 data tracker weekly review of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The number of COVID-19 cases in the US has exceeded 90 million, with over 1 million related deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Over 14 million children in the US have tested positive for COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic, said a report by the American Academy of Pediatrics, or AAP, and the Children's Hospital Association.

Over 92,000 child COVID-19 cases were reported for the week ending July 21, the second consecutive weekly increase of reported cases, said the report.

There is an urgent need to collect more age-specific data to assess the severity of illness, said the AAP.

"We need to identify and address the long-lasting impacts on the physical, mental, and social well-being of this generation of children and youth," said the AAP.

Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on Monday that "high quality" and "well fitted "masks were effective at preventing COVID-19 transmission.

"There's always the possibility that you're going to have the evolution of another variant and hopefully if that occurs it will vary off from the BA.5 only slightly in the sense of being a sub-sub-lineage of it and not something entirely different," said Fauci, who is also Biden's chief medical adviser.

Xinhua - China Daily