Biden went into quarantine at his home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, on Wednesday after testing positive with mild symptoms, the most high-profile example of the virus’s spread. At a campaign event in Pennsylvania on July 7, Biden contrasted himself with Donald Trump, declaring, “I’m the one who ended the pandemic. He didn’t end it.”
His administration is no longer treating COVID-19 as a public health emergency, but as a routine respiratory virus to be contained by annual vaccination campaigns. This strategy reflects the fact that SARS-CoV-2 has become established as a common pathogen and is no longer overwhelming hospitals and health systems, a threat that prompted drastic measures to contain it early in the pandemic.
“COVID-19 is not going away. It’s probably going to be around forever, and we’re going to see waves of infection, typically two or three times a year,” said Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, who retired as the White House coronavirus response coordinator last year.
“This raises the question of how worried we should be,” Jha added. “It sounds scary, but for most people it’s not.”
At 81, Biden is in the age group considered to be at highest risk of developing serious complications from COVID-19. Experts say older people are more likely to experience milder symptoms if they are vaccinated and receive antiviral treatment early in the illness. Biden began his Paxlovidone regimen on Wednesday and received the latest version of the COVID-19 vaccine in September. White House officials did not respond to questions about whether Biden had received the second dose of the latest vaccine recommended for seniors.
An estimated 50,000 people are attending the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, putting them at risk of COVID-19 infection in crowded venues with people not wearing masks (masks are also a rare sight at Biden campaign events).
Phil Griffin, a convention delegate from Winchester, Virginia, said he brought two masks with him in case organizers required them, but he wasn’t worried about COVID-19 even after Biden tested positive.
“We haven’t heard of any symptoms in the delegations around us, in Virginia, in Michigan, in Ohio, in Louisiana,” Griffin said. “So I think we’re just as fortunate as the president is,” he added, referring to Trump’s narrow escape from a would-be assassin’s bullet. “We’re all fortunate to be in good health at this point, as far as we know.”
Meanwhile, Americans with fragile health conditions are facing another summer full of risky COVID-19 infections.
Elizabeth Kidd watched with anxiety in late June as she began receiving daily emails from the nursing home in Northern Virginia where her mother lives, warning of a spreading outbreak that included the memory care unit where her mother is being treated for dementia.
Kidd, 52, takes medication to suppress his immune system to manage his Crohn’s disease, putting him at high risk for COVID-19. His mother, 79, has trouble remembering what COVID-19 is, so he didn’t visit her for two weeks, worried that a prolonged quarantine would make her more likely to forget him.
“The whole situation is pretty nerve-wracking,” Kidd said. “I don’t want to get COVID and I don’t want to be the person that accidentally brings it back to the memory unit.”
Luckily, her mother did not get sick, and Kidd visited her at the facility on Tuesday. There had been no cases there, but masks were still required. Kidd updated her on her grandchildren, who she doesn’t always remember are her own, and reminded her that the coronavirus is like a highly contagious flu.
COVID-19 cases have surged every summer since the pandemic began, with experts attributing the spike to increased travel, large gatherings like weddings and conferences, the emergence of new variants and even hot weather that keeps people indoors and makes it easier for the virus to spread.
“COVID-19 transmission is less likely when you’re outdoors, but with the extreme heat we’re experiencing, especially in the Southwest, people are spending more time indoors,” said Andrew Pecos, a professor of microbiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who specializes in respiratory viruses like COVID-19.
The ongoing rise in COVID-19 cases has coincided with the rise of the KP variant, named FLiRT, and its close relative LB.1 variant, which the CDC estimates accounted for 85% of new cases as of early July. These variants have mutations that allow the virus to spread more easily than previous variants and to infect people with some immunity more efficiently, but do not appear to cause more severe disease.
WastewaterSCAN, a private initiative that tracks municipal wastewater data, found a 54 percent increase in the number of copies of viral RNA per gram of wastewater solids between June 30 and July 12. Virus levels were high in most regions and moderate in the Midwest.
“You may have summer travel plans, but you don’t want them to be ruined or affected by illness,” said Alexandria Bohm, a professor of environmental engineering at Stanford University and lead investigator for WastewaterSCAN. “People who are immunocompromised may want to consider wearing masks or avoiding crowded places.”
Demetre Daskalakis, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said the increase in virus in wastewater shouldn’t be considered in isolation, and that no significant increases in severe outcomes such as hospitalizations or deaths have been seen.
While hospitalizations and deaths from the coronavirus are not as common as they once were, even mild cases can still be disruptive and make patients feel worse than they expect.
Jay Brodber hasn’t been on a plane since the pandemic began, regularly wears a mask indoors and got the latest coronavirus vaccine in April. He hoped he could continue to avoid catching the virus during a two-week road trip through the Northeast. But while in New York, Brodber, 74, started experiencing fever and chills on July 8 and tested positive the next day.
Brodber cut his trip short by a week and drove eight hours back to his home in Toronto, where he said he was suffering from the worst sore throat of his life but felt better after taking Paxlovid and a steroid nasal spray.
The summer COVID-19 surge comes at a tricky time for public health officials who have made a fall vaccination campaign the linchpin of their response. Current vaccines target the XBB variant, which has already stopped working. Updated vaccines won’t be on the market for at least another month, leaving patients and health care providers to discuss trade-offs between getting the older vaccine, which still offers some protection, now or waiting for the new version.
Reinfection poses an ongoing health risk, especially for people in high-risk groups: Patients with severe COVID-19 are more likely to be hospitalized for COVID-19 again, according to a study published in the journal Communications Medicine earlier this month.
“Long Covid,” a lingering illness that can last even when symptoms are mild, remains one of the virus’ most puzzling consequences. Though it has become less common as hospitalizations fall, studies show it is a major risk factor for severe illness.
Public health officials tout that Americans now have the tools to fight the virus, but those tools are becoming harder to access. The federal government has halted widespread distribution of free masks and testing kits. The federal Bridge Access program, which provided free coronavirus vaccines to the uninsured, is set to end in August.
Health officials are urging people at high risk of severe illness, as Biden has done, to get tested if they develop symptoms and to take paxlobidi early to stop the virus from replicating.
But other Americans are having an even harder time getting hold of Paxlovid than the president: Demand so far has been so low that many pharmacies are out of stock of the drug, and those who do manage to get it are sometimes faced with shockingly high bills.
Robin DeChabert, 27, went to the emergency room on Sunday with shortness of breath and a painful cough and was given a prescription for Paxlobidi. She received the drug for free because the federal government covered the cost during her two previous bouts of COVID-19, and credits the antiviral treatment with speeding up her recovery.
But this time, when her sister went to pick up the prescription, the pharmacy charged her $1,700, an amount she couldn’t afford. She left without getting the medicine. DeChabert will be uninsured until she starts a service-work job next month.
“It remains baffling that a drug that was readily available to so many people two years ago is now too expensive and inaccessible for so many Americans,” said DeChabert, who got his Paxlobidi from a friend. “No one should have to go into medical debt in order to survive.”
Pfizer, the maker of Paxlovid, offers a patient assistance program that covers out-of-pocket costs for people without health insurance or who have government insurance, and subsidizes up to $1,500 in copays for those with private insurance.
Pfizer spokeswoman Kit Longley said it takes minutes to sign up for both programs and access the e-vouchers, but some providers and pharmacies aren’t telling patients about them, and DeChavert said she was never informed that assistance was available.
Laura Vozzella contributed to this report.
