Former Vice President Joe Biden announced Friday morning that he had tested negative for the coronavirus, a few days after sharing a debate stage with President Trump.
The president announced Thursday evening that he and First Lady Melania Trump have both tested positive for COVID-19.
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Biden has resumed his campaign activities and is in Michigan to deliver a speech, but there are concerns that he is not out of the woods just yet.
“A negative test today does not guarantee that you’ll have a negative test tomorrow,” explained Dr. Angela Rassmusen, a virologist at Columbia University. It can take several days after an exposure for the virus to register on a test, which means that Biden should get tested again and stay in quarantine.
Dr. Rassmusen says while the candidates were distanced from one another, that may not have been enough to protect them from exposure.
“Being at the debate for a long period of time with Trump where he was definitely speaking a lot, speaking very loudly – which we know increases the number of particles that a person is emitting into the environment – means that he is not out of the woods as far as risk goes,” she said. “And there were no masks being worn by the debaters during the debate, so I think it’s safe to say that the six foot distance alone is not enough to ensure that Biden was not exposed.”
Like the president, Biden is elderly which puts him at a higher risk of a serious case of the virus. And there are potentially many ways the virus could have spread from one campaign to another.
“The First Lady has tested positive, as has the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee. So there were other people in that room as well who might be a source of potential exposure,” said Dr. Rasmussen. “On top of that, we don’t know how many of the people within President Trump’s inner circle – whether they be White House staffers, his family members, or members of his campaign are also potentially positive. We don’t know what kind of interactions they’ve had with the staff on the Biden campaign”
That means that contact tracing is going to be a serious challenge, which means anyone who may have had close contact with the president or anyone else who has tested positive should quarantine for 14 days.
Vice President Mike Pence and his wife have tested negative, as have the Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Kamala Harris and her husband.