now and daughter's is a week from now. beginning of a great week. >> hold the president of the united states in your prayers, wish him a quick recovery from covid-19. thank you to everyone. here is "america reports." >> sandra: thank you, kayleigh and team. kick off "america reports," moments from now we are expecting an update from the white house briefing room. all of this as we learn the president has tested positive for covid. hello and welcome, everyone. i'm sandra smith in new york. >> john: good to be with you on this thursday, i'm john roberts in washington. white house covid coordinator will take part in the briefing. he says the president did not sleep well last night after travelling to massachusetts and waking up this morning with a runny nose and dry cough. the white house says biden is taking the drug paxlovid, designed to reduce the severity of covid. >> sandra: officials say the

symptoms the president is experiencing are very mild. we'll get an update shortly on the president's condition. complete coverage now, dr. marc siegel standing by. >> john: jacqui heinrich is live on the north lawn. the white house has sent out the first picture of the president, from some time today? >> we are to assume it's from today. white house is making an effort to show the president is still carrying out his duties in isolation despite testing positive for covid-19. he tweets, folks, i'm doing great. thanks for your concern. just called senator casey, congressman cartwright and a mayor and scranton cousins send my regret for missing our event today, keeping busy, exclamation point. his symptoms began last night with a runny nose, fatigue and dry cough. when he went to bed he felt fine but did not sleep well, woke up this morning and tested positive. the white house physician says he's talking the antiviral drug

paxlovid, has f.d.a. emergency use authorization for high risk patients. dr. kevin o'connor says the president is fully vaccinated and twice boosted so i anticipate he will respond favorably as most maximally protected patients do. early use of paxlovid provides additional protection against severe disease. former press secretary jen psaki said the white house has been preparing for the exact scenario for months, given the case rate in the u.s. >> they were probably bracing for impact i bet before they made the statement this morning, they knew there would be a lot of reactions, pr media and the markets and other leaders what they need to do is show him working and show him still active and serving as president, i'm certain they will likely do that. >> jacqui: jill biden spent last night in detroit, she tested negative this morning.

and kamala harris tested negative and last saw the president on tuesday. it's not clear where biden picked it up. yesterday he was in massachusetts with members of congress talking climate, flew on a big crew on air force one and sunday returned from middle east and saudi arabia. despite being vaccinated twice and boosted twice, he got it. one year from the day he said this. >> you are ok, you are not going to get covid if you have the vaccinations. >> jacqui: the plan for the president to stay isolated until he tests negative, which is beyond the cdc requirements of five-day isolation period and then mask wearing thereafter. we'll see if he sticks to that. he's missing events planned in pennsylvania today, also plans to go to wilmington for the weekend and a trip to florida on monday, john. >> john: those of us who have been vaccinated and got covid know, the statement he made a year ago did not age well, the president is discovering that as

well. we wish him well, a speedy recovery. jacqui, thank you. sandra. >> sandra: so many of us know that story all too well, right, john? bret gerard, great to have you back, they are talking about the condition, folks, i'm doing great, you saw the tweet a moment ago saying thank you for the concern, the official white house statement noting he's fully vaccinated, twice boosted, experiencing very mild symptoms. when i spoke to you a short time ago when we first got this news, you said i wouldn't be so rosy, he is at risk. explain your concern in this moment. >> well, thank you for having me on. we all hope for the president's full recovery and we expect the president's full recovery. we know being vaccinated

protects against severe illness and paxlovid does that as well. but he's still elderly, underlying conditions, including atrial fibrillation, he's on medications, this is a serious situation and the white house doctors need to approach it with caution as i'm sure they are. >> john: let me expand on that, we have the president's health history. this is as november 19, 2021. mentioned atrial fibrillation, a form called persistent atrial fibrillation, a symptomatic from it, and the cough he often has when he is speaking in public, a mild hernia, seasonal allergies,

diveticulosis, and nonmelanoma skin cancer, and when you look at the overall health assessment, what sort of category of risk and also his age of 79, would you put him in? >> well, his health is not terrible, right. those are sort of conditions you might expect, but it's really his age that puts him in the category, and as i said earlier, he is on blood in thinners, and on paxlovid, that really affects the levels of the blood thinner so they will have to alter that during the course and make sure he does not get too thin of blood that he could bleed but not too thick that he can get a clot. this is what the white house will be doing. paxlovid has the interaction so they need to be careful. he could be off his cholesterol medications a few days, not a problem. more of a problem to be off his blood thinners, which he really does need. >> sandra: admiral, with everything we know about the virus, it changes and the

different strains we learn different things how the virus behaves, based on what we know today, what is sort of the time frame that you'll be watching to see and monitor the progress, at least the white house is able to report, they did say in the statement updating on the president's condition daily. as far as how many days out do you think they'll be able to determine he's in the clear from contracting a serious version of this disease? >> well, every day that passes is good news for him and getting on paxlovid early is sort of belts and suspenders, on top of the vaccine. the next 3 to 5 days we will look, and expect him to get better in the next 48 hours. and then look at the rebound, when people get off paxlovid, there can be induced resistance, specifically to paxlovid, he could have a rebound. we'll want to watch carefully on

day 6 when he gets off the drug. again, i would expect him to improve over the next short period of time, but everybody is different, everybody is an individual, and elderly people who have been vaccinated and on paxlovid still do die or wind up in the hospital. we don't expect that, we hope that's not, we are all praying for the president but do have to be careful. >> john: saw recently with dr. anthony fauci, he had a rebound course of covid after taking paxlovid, had to take another round of paxlovid as well, but seems to be all right now. what about the covid association, particularly in elderly individual with either myo carditis. >> low risk events, low frequency events, but they do occur and they occur much more frequently with the disease than the vaccine. these are things you'll look for. you can get brain fog. maybe some comments yesterday

about having cancer, that could have been from his brain fog from having covid. this is very, very common, occurs in the majority of people. so, we'll be looking for that, we'll be looking for respiratory symptoms, myocarditis symptoms, but they occur. and long covid, 43% of people who get covid have prolonged symptoms over weeks or months. so, all these things could occur and we need to be on top of it because he is the most powerful person, you know, in the world right now, and he deserves our utmost attention. we expect him to be better but this is serious and we need to all be watchful and praying for the president. >> sandra: based on everything you just said and your experience with covid, and the second u.s. president to contract the virus, if you could ask a question of the team that is going to speak at the white

house briefing that's happening, we expect about 50 minutes from now, top of the hour, what questions do you have for the medical team advising this president? >> well, i would first like to know what they are doing with his baseline medications. that's sort of a geeky medical question, but we need to make sure that the patient is on the appropriate blood thinners because there can be serious interactions with paxlovid. secondly, you know, i'm worried about the other people around him. the first lady, you know, was she exposed and if she's exposed, she probably ought to be isolated and certainly shouldn't be running around with a surgical mask like she was this morning. she needs an n95. so, these are the kinds of things around that, and when you are worried about the president you have to worry about the vice president to make sure that the vice president is taking appropriate precautions. being the testing czar, i would like them tested with high sensitivity tests. we know that with ba5 you can test negative several days while you are still infected and

infectious. that's something about ba4 and 5 and omicron, make sure everybody is tested with the most sensitive tests so they can get put on drugs early and don't infect the rest of the cabinet. >> john: we saw with the white house correspondents association dinner in the spring, everybody was tested, could not get in without a negative test and there were likely several dozen cases that came out of that from people who were contagious at the time but were testing negative. so, we heard jen psaki say a moment ago the white house should show the president working, make sure the nation still knows he's engaged. if you are 79 years old and you have covid, should you be working or should you be resting? >> rule number one, whether you are my mother or the president, take care of the patient first. and i would really advise the president and his handlers to give him time to recover. yes, it's important for us to know that the president is still there, is still cognitive, is still ok, but give the man a

break. he is an elderly gentleman with past medical history and you know, there is time for sleep, chicken soup and rest while he recovers. i would not push him too hard for all the reasons above, and we all need to be, you know, expecting about that and i would say give him some time to recover. he deserves that just like everyone else in the country. >> sandra: and the first lady wants to get it out there, what she has heard from her husband so far, even though she's on the road in detroit that she has spoken with him, he says he's feeling fine, she said in a statement, just experiencing a few mild symptoms. we'll get an update from the white house moments from now. admiral, appreciate your time. thank you for joining us. >> john: thanks, admiral. >> thank you. >> john: dr. marc siegel, pick up on what we were talking with the admiral about, my wife had covid a couple months ago, she stayed in bed a couple days, friends of ours have had covid, stayed in bed, shouldn't you say

to a 79-year-old president look, get off your feet for a little while, rest, get better, don't push him into work. >> john, i think so, and i think especially since one of his symptoms that he was talking about was fatigue last night. that was already reported by the doctor, and i think that symptom might imply a certain amount of brain fog and as i said earlier, maybe that explains some of the comments that he made yesterday, you know, about being confused about the cancer issue, which is very emotional for him because of his son beau. so i would say rest. overall point that's optimistic, compare him to when president trump got covid and we didn't have a vaccine, and we had, we didn't have the omicron variant which does not go as deep into the lungs and tends to cause a milder problem. president trump ended up in the hospital. he ended up on, you know, on steroids, on remdesivir and the

antibodies. this president had four vaccines, and paxlovid, you have been talking about paxlovid rebound, very fair but i have to tell you, the majority of the patients i treat don't even get that. so, i expect very high likelihood. look, he has heart disease, atrial fibrillation, 79 years old, does not appear to be obese, does not have diabetes, chronic lung disease, i agree with the admiral that the statin drug crestor has to be stopped, and the blood is concerned, they would cut that in half. i think that's standard. i think he is most likely going to do well. but because of his age, he is in a risk group and has to be watched carefully. >> sandra: going back to admiral

giroir's point, whether or not the white house is testing with high sensitivity tests, hopefully we get some information on that, considering it's a person who is around a lot of people on a daily basis. what about other people around him, asking about the first lady, she was seen in detroit wearing a mask but even though she said she tested negative could test positive in the days to come if she was in contact with the president while he was shedding the virus and thirdly, said baseline medication -- baseline question is the medications he's currently on, and what they are going to have to take him off of to administer the antiviral. where do your concerns lie with that, dr. siegel? >> one of the things i like about dr. giroir, he does not pull punches. i agree with him. i think the first lady should be isolating. one out of three chance someone in that household with the president would get covid, and one out of three i would

continue to test. his other point is also right. you need to do repeated tests, especially with omicron. the omicron subvariants often are negative at first, i've had in my practice 2 or 3 days where you finally get a positive test. of course they are going to be monitoring the first lady for symptoms, everyone he came in contact with will be tested repeatedly. there's several tests that we use now, the rapid tests. i think the key is not to say one is better than the other, five of them are quite good, but the key is repeated testing and isolation if you came in close contact with him. and medications, stop the cholesterol drug for sure and cut down on the blood in thisser. the two main medications he's on right now. >> sandra: thank you, we will know more hopefully soon, get an update from the white house. our hopes and prayers are that he is going to come out of this just fine being that he is dealing with this right now --

it's a story and a situation all too many of us in this country have gone through. everybody seems to have unique experience with this virus but hopefully there is a happy outcome from this. >> john: we have all been there. and again, as admiral giroir was suggesting, the situation with this president is much different than the previous president. if i could, people might be wondering, why is he on a blood thinner because of atrial fibrillation. the top left chamber of your heart instead of beating like that, flutters like this, and can cause regurgitation of the blood and a clot could lodge in the brain, and cause a stroke. so anybody who has atrial fibrillation, which includes me, has to be on a blood thinner to prevent those clots from happening. so the paxlovid interacts with the blood thinners, they have to get it to a point where it does not become a problem, either making the blood too thin or too thick and causing a clot or

stroke. >> sandra: we'll see if they get into the details, to the admiral's point, how they are handling the preexisting conditions and medications while they put him on the antiviral. they plan on transparency and daily health updates, we are about to get one. >> john: no lung involvement so far, that's a good sign. >> sandra: that is a good sign. more on that coming up. truckers in california blocking all movement at a major u.s. port protesting a controversial new labor law. the impacts it will all have on the already lingering supply chain problems in this country. >> john: and russia again pumping gas from the nord stream 1 into europe at a lower rate. montana senator is up next on that. time. it's life's most precious commodity, especially when you have metastatic breast cancer. when your time is threatened, it's hard to invest in your future.

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>> john: skaern's port of. >> john: california's port of oakland shut down the third day in a row, truckers are protesting the labor law to reclassify as employees instead of independent contractors. claudia, the law was passed in 2019. so, why the protest now? >> well, john, it's happening now because this law is still being contested in the courts. it is not enforced yet and also because the truckers know a port shut down now would have a huge and far-reaching impact as toy makers and other retailers start to gear up for the holiday season and stockpile imports of back to school items. but none of that is happening today here at one of the busiest ports in the country.

the truckers are protesting state labor law ab5, that would force about 70,000 independent operators to either set up their own corporations or become employees of trucking companies. now, this law was meant to protect uber drivers and other gig economy workers from being exploited but the truckers want to remain independent contractors so they can set their own work schedule and drive their own rig. they say any other model would be devastating. >> all out here three days, nonstop, from early mornings to late night, you know, we are trying to stop the port's operation so that we can get our point across and we are going to be out here until sacramento gives us an answer about this law. >> port officials have expressed sympathy, but in a statement said prolonged stoppage of operations in california for any reason will damage all the businesses operating at the port. some 10,000 containers come through the port of oakland

every day. the protestors say anything you are wearing, using or consumer was at some point likely transported by truck. but nothing here is going anywhere any time soon. these truckers say they will stay out here and block the entrances to the part of oakland and john, just one of many until they get assurances from the state that they won't have to work for anyone but themselves. back to you. >> john: we'll keep watching it. see if it makes the situation worse. sandra. >> sandra: thank you. after a ten-day shut down, russia is restarting its biggest natural gas pipeline into europe. fuel is flowing much more slowly than it did before putin's invasion of ukraine, that has leaders concerned gas prices could soar in western europe and climb again here at home. bring in republican senator steve deigns of montana. we have been watching what is happening there to fully understand what's happening here at home with our energy prices. as the white house often

correctly notes, energy prices are global. so, what does it mean for american drivers now that they have started to tap this pipeline again, those energy flows are happening. what does it mean for our energy situation here at home? >> what this means is that vladimir putin has weaponized energy and holds europe hostage to his whims with the pipeline. america is safer, the world is safer when america leads in energy production, not the russians. you think about this administration and president biden, he kills the keystone pipeline, shuts down leases for new oil and natural gas production, shutting down coal plants, and now we have a crisis. crisis the biden administration has now is a public approval crisis. realize only 1% of the american people think climate is a highest priority. recent "new york times" survey,

1% say it's the biggest issue. 80% of the american people say inflation and energy prices are the biggest issue. this is an administration out of touch with reality and the american people are suffering for it. >> sandra: you look at the situation with nord stream, the gas flow, 160 million cubic meters of gas a day, russia is delivering 40% of the capacity. europe is in a tight spot. i mean, they have to make it through this winter, they are depleting supplies, less is coming in, and then they have to look out to the next winter, it could be a dire situation then, there is talk of rationing and what they are going to do, if this is a situation that is prolonged, can you give us any idea of what is being planned for as far as rationing is concerned? and if there might ever be the need to do something like that here at home if global supplies get that pinched? >> here is what happened. a little over ten years ago the green woke climate crazies

captured political ideology in europe, shutting down nuclear plants, shutting down coal plants and now left with a disaster, not only inflation but safety. i spoke with the prime minister of a european country yesterday and the prime minister told me they are looking now at going in and cutting down trees, they are going to use wood to stay warm this winter. the greenies think we are heading into a bright new future, they are taking us back 50 years. we cannot let america go down the same path. we have to fight back again president biden's policies where he is yielding to the green woke climate crazy folks who are seeking to stop energy production rather than increase it. >> sandra: we know that's not the case and the white house and the administration are clear about that. we have been covering the transportation secretary, pete buttigieg this week saying that in the middle of a moment in the

country, 60% of americans are living paycheck to paycheck, he's so out of touch. astonished there is not a quicker transition to electric vehicles that on average cost $67,000 apiece and hard to come by. what do you do, how do republicans prepare come this fall if there is a red wave, what do you do? how are you preparing to handle a situation that's already gotten this bad this fast? >> it's terrible. we have never seen inflation like this in 41 years, never seen gas prices this high ever in our nation's history. first of all, we have to have the red wave, it's coming. we have to change controls in the united states senate and house. what we can do in the house, stop some of the radicals that biden is putting on the administration. we control the nominees. we have to stop that. i think about secretary buttigieg, i wonder if he's reminded of the fact that tesla sent out warnings in texas 48 hours ago saying you can't charge your car between

3:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. because we don't have enough electricity. this is craziness. the american people are suffering, time for a change in leadership in washington. we need more republican senators, i can tell you that. >> sandra: senator, i have to leave it there. prediction on your part, house and the senate will flip? >> we are going to get the house and the senate. >> sandra: ok, thank you for joining us, appreciate it. >> john: the woke world coming back for comedian dave chappell. why a theater shut down his show at the last minute forcing another theater to step in and host it. >> sandra: plus, fake pills laced with fentanyl killing americans all across the country. coroner in one state saying it's the most dangerous time ever to be a teenager in america saying two young people died on the same night. we'll speak to one father who lost his son to an overdose, next.

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>> sandra: fox news alert, waiting a briefing from the white house after it announced president biden tested positive for covid. that announcement came in earlier this morning saying biden is experiencing "mild symptoms" and is isolating, that is all according to a white house statement. he's been treated with the antiviral paxlovid. we will be going to the white house when the update begins and hope to get some answers on the president's condition. we wish him well. john. >> john: sandra, fake pills laced with fentanyl, a growing danger across the nation and it's turning deadly for americans everywhere. a coroner telling fox news two young people from louisiana died on the same night after taking pills they thought were percocet. our next guest lost his 16-year-old son daniel. he also died after swallowing a pill laced with fentanyl he bought on snapchat.

the tragic situation with you and your son daniel in a moment, but the latest news, two young people in louisiana died on the same night after taking pills laced with fentanyl. one was 21 years old, one pill and it killed him. and most coming across the border from mexico via china is incredibly dangerous. >> first and foremost, these are not pills that are being laced with fentanyl, they are straight-up counterfeit pills made of any kind of binder and fentanyl. and i would have to correct the analogy these are drug overdoses, they are not. they are poisoning. 16, 17, 18-year-old children go on snapchat, wants to experiment with drugs for the first time or self-medicate and reaches out to a drug dealer or that dealer reaches out to that child, sells him when he thinks is a pharmaceutical grade percocet,

oxycodone, and dies, that is not overdose, that is a poisoning. if i know what i'm taking and take too much of it, that is an overdose. june 24th in california, two men were pulled over, they were caught with 150,000 counterfeit pills. they were remanded in custody and later released on their own recognizance. last week on july 12th in the city of burbank, two men were caught with 100,000 fake oxycodone pills and they were luckily, or thankfully remanded to federal custody and then just this week, the border patrol down in san diego caught a man with 250 pounds of fentanyl. three and a half million dollars worth of fentanyl that was coming in to california. 50% of all the seizures happening to the border patrol are seized at the southern

border and it's -- it's wide open border, and it's coming in only 4% of the fentanyl coming into the country is intradicted. >> john: records amount coming across the border. the tragic situation with your son daniel, shopping around on snapchat, found somebody willing to sell him a pill, it was a pill laced with fentanyl, he unfortunately died from poisoning. you had spoken out about the dangers of social media here. it used to be if you wanted to get drugs you would go to a strip mall, go some other place, a street corner, meet up with the drug dealer. that whole paradigm has changed now, and it has become very frightening for parents and for young people. >> that is absolutely correct, john. you know, drug dealer went from brick and mortar buildings on to social media applications like snapchat, meta, whatsapp and

instagram. the child with the smartphone, they are bored, we had a pandemic when we had kids behind the computer screens, six and a half, seven hours a day, nobody was watching them. the kids are going on to the social media platforms ordering a pill like my son daniel did, and unfortunately if they don't die, they become immediately addicted to it. i do not condone my son's decision on wanting to self-medicate but he certainly did not deserve to die for it. right now the most overlooked segment of society are these children between 13 to 17 years of age who are dying in mass numbers. just this week here in my city of santa clarita, another man, 18 years old, passed away due to fentanyl poisoning and every time i hear the stories it sickens me. i feel we are not doing enough to curb or abate the drug deaths across the nation. we need our federal authorities to step up their game because we

are being massacred out here. this is a national security crisis like no other. >> john: and to drive that point home, put the graphic on the screen. 22 states across the nation have had fake pill deaths linked to social media and as you can see, it's from the west coast all the way to the east coast. the message to young people is you can't trust anything of this nature that you buy on the internet. we are so sorry for your tragic loss. thank you for coming on to speak with us. we appreciate it. >> thank you for your time, john. appreciate it. >> sandra: update now from the vice president, kamala harris, just speaking a short time ago in charlotte, north carolina. we turned to the sound of the moment where she commented on the president's current condition after testing positive for covid, said he says hi and she said this. >> this morning he and i spoke by phone. he is in good spirits.

he is feeling well. he is doing well. he is fully vaccinated and twice boosted and of course he is, and as everyone we would encourage was eligible would do the same and he is working from the white house residence -- [inaudible] >> sandra: about 20 minutes away from the update from the briefing room at the white house. that was kamala harris, in good spirits, feeling well, doing well. also an update to the tweets that the president himself sent out earlier, our own jacqui heinrich confirming from the white house that the picture attached to that tweet of the president saying folks i'm doing great, thank you for your concern, was taken today. the photograph was taken today on the day that the white house announced that he tested positive for the virus. so, that is the update from the vice president from the white house and we await the briefing

top of the hour. comedian david chappell, cancel culture, minneapolis called off his show just hours before he was set to take the stage last night. jonathan hunt is reporting on this. the latest from there. jonathan, chappell was canceled but not silenced, right? >> yeah, dave chappell, he did perform, just not at the venue, days earlier sold out within minutes of announcing he would perform there. controversial comedian, faced criticism for jokes about the transgender community and for saying gender is a fact, had been booked to appear at the famous first avenue club in minneapolis. but the club suddenly canceled the show after outrage on social media with comments like this targeting first avenue. you're platforming someone deliberately choosing to target trans people at historical

people where the actual people's actual lives are in actual danger, the club pulled the plug saying we hear you and we are sorry. we know we must hold ourselves to the highest standard and we know we let you down. so it was moved ahead to another club and went ahead with apparently several dozen protestors outside. according to the minneapolis star tribune, chappell teased the protestors during his performance and the latest show, he was defiant despite the criticism he's faced. >> the more you say i can't say something, the more urgent it is for me to say it and it has nothing to do with what you are saying i can't say. it has everything to do with my right, my freedom of artistic expression. >> and the tv industry as a whole seems to be standing by chappell. the closer, the special in which he said gender is a fact, has just been nominated for an emmy. he also has four more shows in minneapolis over the next two

nights, sandra. every one of them sold out. sandra. >> sandra: more on that next hour, by the way. jimmy failla will be joining us. >> john: moments away from the white house briefing. president biden testing positive for covid. he has mild symptoms, isolating and taking paxlovid. the briefing now set for 2:15 eastern time. >> sandra: we will be joined next on where it all could go from here. you ever wonder why people are always on their phones? they're banking, with bank of america. look at this guy. he bought those tickets on his credit card and he's rackin' up the rewards. she's using zelle to pay him back for the hot dogs he's about to buy. and the announcer? he's not checkin' his stats, he's finding some investing ideas with merrill. and third as you know in baseball means three. digital tools so impressive, you just can't stop banking.

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u.s. surgeon general dr. jerome adams. we heard you on television from indiana earlier in the day. your assessment, given the president's age, his medical history, and knowing what you know of the white house medical unit, how do you expect he's going to do in the interim and how the team will proceed with his treatment. >> well, john, thanks for having me, and i want to say first off i'm praying for the president, he's the leader of our country and again, whether president trump or president biden, we want a leader who is healthy. you asked how i think it's going to go. i think and hope it's going to go well because he is fully vaccinated, he's gotten both of his boosters, and he was promptly started on paxlovid. so, one of the things we are trying to emphasize to high risk individuals such as the president is that it's important you get your boosters. only a third of this country approximately have gotten their boosters because we know it's spreading and more people will

encounter it and if you actually do get symptoms that you promptly get tested so you can get put on treatment which will lower your chance of the progression and hospitalization by 80 to 85%. >> sandra: i'll ask you the same question, dr. adams, i asked admiral giroir a short time ago. what questions do you have in this moment? >> well, the questions i have are related to exposure. we know the president has been all over the world, quite frankly, in the last couple of days. how many people were exposed via the president that we need to alert, number one. and number two, what are the protocols. american people need to know what are the protocols in place to protect the president and whether or not they are going to change the protocols moving forward to help prevent spread in this white house. there has been much more spread in this white house than what was in the last white house despite rhetoric that they were going to take this more

seriously and i don't want to say that this would not have happened anyway, if it's actually a testament to some of the precautions they are taking that you did not see a diagnosis in the president earlier, but again, with cases going up, do they need to be doing more. that's a question we need to have answered. >> john: we put this up again, the president's health history as of november 19th of last year, we know he's got persistent atrial fibrillation, reflux disease, mild hernia, seasonal allergies, nonmelanoma skin cancer, eliquis, and crestor for cholesterol. when you take a look at the whole picture there, you know, if you were still the person in charge of treating the president, how would you proceed? >> well, i would have made sure he got on paxlovid promptly. one of the things that's concerning me, they seem

insistent saying he's going to continue to work and admiral giroir mentioned this earlier. as a physician, i'm not the president's physician, but to anyone, i have family members much younger, lower risk than the president who have gotten covid who were on paxlovid and who still had incredible fatigue who needed the time to be able to rest and recuperate. i hope they are giving him the time and the space to be able to be able to recover from covid, despite what you hear it's not just a cold, and especially in someone with as many co-morbidities, even with paxlovid, he could have an issue moving forward. >> sandra: and everybody at home thinking about it and concern about long covid as well and brain fog and other things reported associated with this virus. so i guess time will tell, and we'll see how this president is able to handle the virus but

it's unpredictable, right. >> it's unpredictable but the best way to avoid long covid is not get covid in the first place, we are still insistent people take measure to try to prevent the disease. yes, most people will inevitably get it, many people have, the more times you get it the more you increase your chances of long covid and we are still studying but good reason to believe if you are promptly started on treatment it may lower your chances of getting long covid also. but i'm glad you brought that up because there's been way too much focus on death and disability and not enough focus on the long-term implications of covid. long covid happens in people in many cases who had mildly symptomatic disease moving forward. not just for the president but viewers out there, get your vaccine, get your booster, take common sense protections to protect yourself and if you have symptoms, get tested right away

and started on the antivirals, which can shorten your disease course, make you feel better acutely and may lower your chance of long covid. >> john: control room, call for number 8 here, exactly a year ago president biden seemed to suggest getting vaccinated and then getting boosted was -- listen to what he said in this town hall. >> various shots that people are getting now cover that. you are ok, you are not going to -- you are not going to get covid if you have these vaccinations. >> john: you said you are not going to get covid if you had the vaccinations. i don't know if he meant not a bad case of covid or not going to get covid, but clearly the proof is in the pudding. people who have been vaccinated and you look at two on the screen beside you here have still gotten covid. >> exactly, john. you and i have talked about this before. messaging has been bad in the past, we need to reset it and clearly the president said something there that was wrong,

and it was proven wrong by his own case of hospital. we need to reframe that, help people understand that these vaccines may not prevent spread but that does not mean they are not going to help you live a healthier life and keep your society open, and when you look at the potential workforce implications of one in five adults with mild cases developing of long covid. i tell people to get vaccinated and boosted. that's what i hope the message will evolve to and i hope people stop politicizing this. you have heard me express my frustration, john, about how the administration really tries to blame the unvaccinated previously as opposed to engage them. it's not going to prevent you from getting covid. may prevent you from ending up in the hospital or worse and it may prevent you from getting long covid, which is going to harm far more people than we have seen die from covid. >> sandra: appreciate you joining us, thank you very much. >> john: thank you, doc.

>> always a pleasure. >> sandra: dr. janette nesheiwat, welcome. great to have you on set here in new york city. you have been at the ground level of this virus since go. i mean, i remember through the first shutdown, going to you live in your new york city office, covered head to toe, dealing with this virus. a lot has changed since then. we have learned a lot. the vaccine is here. most people have the vaccine. they are boosted, double boosted in the case of the president here. jump into this conversation. what are your thoughts in this moment? >> you are absolutely right, sandra. two years ago it was a nightmare, and we have made so much progress, especially since president trump's operation warp speed, having the antivirals, the antibodies, you can't take the paxlovid, it has made a difference in the number of deaths and hospitalizations, so

we have made tremendous progress but we are not done yet. you know, if you've had a vaccine or had infection and natural immunity, it does not last forever, so we need to work on improving our vaccine, improving our antivirals, some people need a second round of antivirals or have rebound infection. >> sandra: dr. anthony fauci. >> exactly. and the vaccines, more durable, effective vaccines. they don't protect you forever are, protect you from what i'm seeing in my patients more than 2, 3 months. they do protect you from severe illness, what i'm saying. you can still catch covid, you can still spread it to others, but you know, it can help keep you out of the hospital and prevent severe symptoms if you've had it in the past 2, 3 months. >> john: any time, dr. nesheiwat, a president falls ill, it's a great concern. we saw president trump in his early 70s get covid and was serious quite quickly, we didn't

have the arsenal of therapeutics we have now, didn't have the knowledge about treatment that we did. but the fact -- if people in their 50s or 60s get covid, don't necessarily think of it so much as a big deal. here is a president who is the most powerful person on the planet and he's 79 years old, and he gets covid with the number of co-morbidities, increasingly frail according to his medical records, skeletal function, what are your concerns for someone in his medical condition, his age who comes down with it? >> he's high risk, john. one of my first patients that died from covid, i'll never forget him, he suffered from atrial fibrillation, a heart rhythm disorder, what president biden has. so, you know, he's high risk, because of his medical conditions. also has high cholesterol and his age, being 79. 81% of those over the age of 65 account for most of the deaths that we are seeing in covid. and even though our president was put on paxlovid, that

interferes with his blood thinner. he's on a thinner called eliquis, that has to be modified, the dose has to be lowered and he can have a reaction to the medications. bleeding, hemorrhaging, whether in the brain or internal organs. he can no longer take the statin, it can cause kidney failure along with the paxlovid, and watch his vital signs very closely. i want to know what is oxygen level running, what is his temperature. these are the things that need to be monitored, because even though he does not have obesity, he does not have diabetes, he doesn't smoke, his age and underlying medical conditions put him in the high risk category. but fortunately he was started on the medications right away, and doctors will watch him closely and i think he most likely will pull through this. >> sandra: dr. nesheiwat, having

seen so many cases, what do you say the window you are looking at to determine whether or not this is a mild or severe case, you know, he's already tested positive, one can make the case that he was already, you know, suffering from the virus for days, he had a negative test result on tuesday. >> the first 7 to 10 days i'm happy, i can sit back and relax. the first 7 to 10 days can be dangerous. you have to watch very, very closely, and he might have to take, you know, a second round of antivirals, and maybe his doctors might even want to start him on mono clonal antibodies in addition, off label, but closely monitored and hydrated, very important, hydration and making sure he does not develop secondary complications like blood clots or further irregular heartbeat. >> sandra: dr. nesheiwat, great to have you on. thank you for joining us. you have seen so many of these cases, done so much amazing work for so many. thank you. >> john: thanks, doc. good to see you.

fox news alert, moments from now the white house set to give its first on camera response since president biden tested positive for covid. welcome back, as "america reports" rolls into a second hour. i'm john roberts in washington. busy day today, sandra. >> sandra: it is indeed. i'm sandra smith in new york, we x expect to hear not only from the press conference, karine jean-pierre, but the white house covid coordinator will give the update from the podium there, so we hope to have an update on the president's condition. >> john: the white house releasing a statement earlier today saying the president is experiencing very mild symptoms and working in isolation for the next few days until he tests negative. the president himself tweeting a couple hours ago, folks, i'm doing great, thanks for your concern and a picture of himself working. >> sandra: we have a lot to

cover, jacqui heinrich is live in the briefing room. what is the tone in the white house as we await the update on the president's condition. >> different than when john was here two years ago and former president trump got the same diagnosis. the difference now with vaccines and boosters is quite noticeable. the white house physician says because the president is twice vaccinateded and twice boosted, he expects he will respond favorably. he's taking antiviral drug paxlovid, approved under the f.d.a. emergency use authorization for high risk patients. additional protection against severe disease. the white house making an effort to show the president is still carrying out his duties while in isolation, tweeted out a picture, an official confirmed was taken today. biden tweets, folks, i'm doing great, just called people and scranton cousins regrets for missing an event today.

keeping busy, exclamation point. and last night he had a runny nose, fatigue and dry cough. went to bed and felt fine but this morning woke up not feeling well and tested positive. the first lady was not with the president last night. she spent the night in detroit, tested negative from detroit this morning and now plans to continue on to wilmington where she'll spend the rest of the weekend, going to isolate from the president. vice president harris last saw the president on tuesday. she also tested negative today and said this. >> before i begin i do want to speak about our incredible president, joe biden, this morning he and i spoke by phone. he is in good spirits, he is feeling well. he is doing well. he is fully vaccinated and twice boosted, and of course he is, and as everyone who would encourage who was eligible would do the same. >> it's not clear where the

president picked it up. yesterday he was in massachusetts with members of congress talking climate, he flew with a big crew on air force one and sunday returned to his middle east trip from israel and saudi arabia. despite being vaccinated twice and boosted twice, he got it, one year to the day, by the way, that he said this. >> you are ok, you are not going to -- you are not going to get covid if you have these vaccinations. >> the plan is for the president to stay isolated until he tests negative, a step beyond the cdc requirements that say isolate five days and wear a mask after that. as of now, he is missing events in pennsylvania, also plans to go to wilmington over the weekend and planned trip to florida that was slated for monday, sandra. >> john: and jacqui, it's john here. people who were vaccinated have fallen ill, first of all, to delta, and then the omicron variants. so what he said a year ago did not hold for very long. but in terms of, he tested

positive now on thursday, which meant his exposure was probably some time in the previous 3 to 6 days, so could have been saudi arabia, air force one, either overseas or here in washington, d.c. does his team have any idea on narrowing it down where he may have picked it up? >> they have not revealed it to us if they have an idea, but he began the weekend on the other side of the globe and met with countless officials and then staff members and then was on his way back to the u.s. on air force one, you know, he had that meeting with members of congress in massachusetts, and there is an incubation period. we don't know of any other positive cases around him at least right now. >> sandra: update on the presidential twitter account, a video of the president standing on the balcony at the white house. it's about 20 seconds long. we are turning it for our viewers right now, saying hey

folks, i guess you heard, tested positive for covid this morning, noting he's been double vaccinated, double boosted. symptoms are mild he says and appreciate your inquiries and concerns. the president notes in the video he's doing well, getting a lot done, mean while, thank you for your concern. and keep the faith, said the president. so, we are turning the video, he says it himself and we'll play it out when we have a new update from the president. thank you very much. and just like when anybody attracts covid, attention turns to people in close contact as jacqui just noted and possible exposure to the virus, when it's the president of the united states, the close contacts include some very, very important people. >> john: they do. mark meredith is live at the white house with that. just looked at the president's video he tweeted out, he looks pretty good for having covid, standing there on the truman balcony overlooking the south lawn. we'll turn that video as quickly

as possible. in terms of these other folks and concern for their health, what's going on. >> good afternoon. i just watched the video myself, it's about 21 seconds long, it's very brief but important, a chance for the president to present the image, not just a still photo for interpretation, this is the video where he says he's doing ok and thankful to have the help in the white house. ever since the president took office, the white house has been preparing for this possibility. they have been working as hard as possible to keep coronavirus away from him, but with the virus able to spread as quickly as it does, always a chance that would come to the point today. overtime, we have seen things like regular testing for senior staff or press, people that would go into the oval office may have to wear masks. restrictions have become less compared to, say, even a year ago this time. but we are, obviously, waiting to see whether or not the white house will have to change the strategy yet again. we are hearing those close to the president, including the first lady, what she had to say

a few hours ago. >> may have just heard my husband tested positive for covid. i talked to him just a few minutes ago. he's doing fine. he's doing good. i tested negative this morning. i am going to keep my schedule. i am according to cdc i'm keeping masked. >> a number of other people will have to monitor their health. we saw photos like these with the president all smiles on air force one yesterday as he was heading to massachusetts, he met with the congressional delegation, senator elizabeth warren is masking up now, and senator ed markey, he tested this morning as he does regularly and will remain masked and socially distant. and double vaccinated and double boosted. there were also a high number of high profile advisors that were travelling with the president, you see them boarding marine one

after he got on, including the deputy chief of staff, press secretary and national climate advisor. he with will learn more about precautions they are taking once the white house briefing getting underway, delayed a few minutes. since 2021, ever since the president took office, we have seen a number of white house staffers work remotely after they tested positive for covid. this administration has said they are still able to get the work done they need to get done even if it means everybody here is on campus, and john, so notable, i remember from the first early days of the biden administration compared to two years ago, was in the trump white house, so many people here the first year of the biden administration when the vaccine was being rolled out, a lot of staffers work remotely, fewer press people inside the bullpen and press out here, now we see bigger attendance on a daily basis. you have to wonder whether you are going to see that change again. >> one quick follow-up about testing protocol, messaging from

the white house on what the protocol is for testing the president, and those around him, sort of putting together the pieces what we know so far. he started experiencing symptoms yesterday, woke up, tested positive this morning. the statement from the white house notes that he was negative in his last test on tuesday, so it appears the protocol was not every single day for the president to be tested. >> yeah, we don't believe the president was testing every day. every time reporters would press back, and not just fox, other outlets would ask as well, how often would the president be tested, a lot of times oh, we are following regular guidance or talking to the president's there is and following best advice. you are right, the president was not being tested on a daily basis. they are telling us the last time he tested negative being tuesday. what was interesting, too, sometimes reporters would ask the press secretary, when was the last, the date, time, now obviously questions about was

there a feeling that after the trip abroad to saudi arabia, was there a chance of this happening or when he was back at the white house, and also i thought it was interesting, he did not have any public events on monday or tuesday. reporters asked, why was that, what was going on, the white house shrugged it off saying the president was doing meetings as usual, but no public events and now here we are 48 hours later. >> sandra: and what testing they will be giving him now that he's positive, what sensitivity the tests are. back to the white house when the update begins. mark, thanks. john. >> john: so many of us have learned, sandra, you test negative up until the point you test positive and then you have it. we were mentioning a second ago the president put out a short 20 second video from the truman balcony where he addresses the nation on his illness. listen here. >> hey folks, guess you heard, this morning i tested positive for covid. i've been double vaccinated,

double boosted, symptoms are mild, and i really appreciate your inquiries and your concerns. i'm doing well. getting a lot of work done, going to continue to get it done and in the meantime, thanks for your concern, and keep the faith. going to be ok. >> john: he doesn't sound like he's sick at all. remember eric adams, he sounded sick. president does not sound sick. >> sandra: bring in martha maccallum, anchor of "the story." we hope for the absolute best outcome of all of this, interesting update we just got, 20-second video the white house put out, seems to be, to jacqui's point earlier, wanting to get it out there the president is just experiencing mild symptoms and will continue his work in isolation. >> martha: great to be with you guys. obviously a sort of natural tension in the communications part of the presidential operation, they want to make it clear that the president is

doing well and thank goodness, that's a very perky, positive video we saw for the president. at the same time, they want to send a message that we have heard from a few doctors i have heard speaking with over the last hour or so, it's really important to rest. so they have to find the balance, assuring the american people the president is feeling well, everybody wants to see, with that concern that he is 79, that he does have a number of medical conditions, despite the fact he is, fair to say, very agile, gets around very well with the possible exception of the bike thing that could happen to anybody, but he is -- he did an older gentleman, and so obviously there are these concerns. i also thought it was interesting what mark meredith just said. i remember in the briefing room the other day a couple of questions where he was on monday and tuesday after the trip, and they were, you know, sort of quick to say that he had a busy schedule, he was just going to be working from the residence on

monday and tuesday and then back out yesterday and now this diagnosis this morning. so, you know, also interesting to contrast how different from when we saw it happen to president trump. we were living in a very different world, but the fact remains this pandemic has been very long and we now have two u.s. president who have succumbed to at least a positive diagnosis. >> john: we just had jerome adams, the former surgeon general, he tweeted something out, he said his diagnosis and prognosis with either thumb's up or thumb's down. high risk, thumb's down, up to date in vaccines, thumb's up, started on antivirals, thumb's up, but not resting or recuperating, so thumb's down. a mixed bag there. the fact that he looks almost to be asymptomatic in the video would clearly be a good sign at least in the early hours of this

diagnosis here he seems to be doing well. >> martha: he does seem to be doing well, and we will have questions for the doctors over the next several hours about this, how different is this variant. because thankfully this is what we hear from a lot of people who have had it, if you have been vaccinated and boosted and done all of those things, it tends to be cold-like symptoms that most people experience and i think that's one of the reasons that you have seen the change in tone at the white house in terms of the way they do things, the masks have been dropped but on top of that, the complication, it's highly transmissible. so it's kind of an interesting mix. seems like the symptoms are milder and people seem to bounce back fairly quickly. on the other hand, it finds its way around precautions that have been taken fairly easily. >> sandra: that's the world we live in now, most of us can live

our lives after a positive diagnosis. a letter we just received from the biden white house chief of staff ron klain to white house staff on the news of the president's positive diagnosis. having read the initial statement from the white house several times, martha, this reads similarly, it repeats the president is vaccinated, twice boosted, he tested positive this morning, he's on paxlovid, the antiviral, consistent with white house protocol with positive cases and beyond cdc guidance, i didn't know i was on the screen, i was paraphrasing. we are going to execute the plan so the president can work seamlessly from the residence, ok. it goes on to say, maybe we have not continued that, but that's an interesting point to be made, martha, there is a plan in place. ron klain notes we have prepared

for some time there was a substantial possibility that the president of the united states would contract this virus. so clearly there's a plan in place to deal with this, and i believe that's what we are about to hear from this white house, how they are handling it. >> we were expecting the statement to get underway in the briefing room there at 2:00 straight up, now it's 2:16, it has been delayed and we do expect it's going to get underway shortly. but you know, when you talk about that plan and ron klain and what they have been working on to make sure it's seamless, sandra, i'm struck by the earliest days of the biden presidency. they have been taking precautions around this president for a very, very long time and he finally got it. this is sort of what happens to most of us, we have all experienced it in our own families and friends, despite the vaccinations which we were told at one point was going to prevent people from getting it, people do seem to eventually -- seem to eventually find most people. this is a president who campaigned exclusively from the basement of his home during the course of this, and he was

isolated for a very long time. we all have seen the masks that he wore at the beach and all of the different ways that they have worked to protect this president, so it doesn't surprise me that they have a lot of eventualities in place if he tested positive. he's been tested so many times and today for the first time as many people experience he got that positive response so yeah, no doubt they have a lot of things in place to keep him working and to keep him safe. best medical care in the country, that much we can be very confident about. >> just thinking it's the jeff goldbloom principle in jurassic park, take all the precautions in the world and nature finds a way. >> indeed, and everybody can be sort of understanding of what's going on here, we have also seen it affect the older people in

our lives as well, and he does have some health issues, you guys have outlined pretty clearly. so, we are about to hear what the plan is here over the next several days. >> sandra: and obviously happening, the backdrop of a very busy moment for this country and a lot happening all over the world. martha, we will see you for your coverage for this and more at 3:00 on "the story." >> sandra: dr. marc siegel, you have been talking about this throughout the day. we learned 9:00 eastern time this morning about the president's positive test. jump in here. what are your thoughts, what are your concerns, what are your questions as we await this update? >> i want to bring two new things on to the table we have not talked about all day. first, respond to martha's point. we have turned a corner when we went to omicron and how did we do that, well, labs across the world and specifically united

kingdom found the omicron variants affected the upper airways, not deep into the lungs, and that's why not as many get sick or hospitalized, especially if they have been vaccinated, again if they get the antiviral drugs we have. the virus itself has changed. and a lot more immunity around, seeing all the different subvariants infecting people, that causes an immunity. the problem is the latest subvariants evade that immunity so you get sick anyway, you get sick anyway but not as sick. the other point i want to bring up we have not mentioned today is the drug called baltilmovad, works very well against the subvariant and digging into whether the president could have received this, i'm not getting an answer. but for very elderly people or at high risk it's on the table,

it works. it could be given in conjunction with paxlovid. and what the doctor told you in the past hour, we have to watch and monitor. i've seen so many patients they are doing really well and then all of a sudden get sicker. but her point about the window being about a week is xabtly what my experience is on this. >> john: take a look at the bigger picture, uptick in cases of covid across the country, increase in hospitalizations in some places like l.a. county at 60%, now thoughts of a return to mask mandate, the san diego unified school controversy, a couple of counties in georgia are doing the same thing. when we have a high profile event like this, the noise tends to get a lot louder around this idea of going back to mandates.

do you think that this is going to have any broader public health implications? >> i hope not. john, that's an excellent question and i hope we are past mandates because of public fatigue. but your excellent coverage for the show so far and throughout the day, we are making a point against mandates. look, you have a situation where the white house is not putting everybody into isolation, is not -- even the first lady is walking around, you know, going about her business. i think she should be isolated and wearing a better mask, by the way, than a surgical mask. but the point is, more of a point of a sense of things have changed. and martha was saying that, things have changed. it's part of our lives now. we have to be really, really careful about it, but we have tools that we did not have before, and i don't think the mandate message works anymore, not in this situation. we are not seeing a huge uptick of hospitalizations or deaths,

even though, and this is a really important point, all of these positive rapid tests are not being reported. so it's not just 150,000 new cases a day, probably more like a million new cases a day. most of them are mild. >> sandra: dr. siegel, we are inside the two-minute window now, hopefully will be going to the white house in a moment. admiral giroir a few moments ago said his priorities have not been the testing czar, curious the sensitivity of the tests on the president and those around him. and contact tracing, obviously is of importance, including the first lady who is still out and about, although wearing a mask as she pointed out on video. he said his baseline is what medications he's being pulled off of to take the antiviral drug, dr. siegel. so, give us some sort of idea what you are listening for as we await this. >> i know the great, great

question. i know they are going to say the crestor, cholesterol drug is stopped. we do not give that during the five days you are on paxlovid, because it actually interacts in the liver and you could prolong it and way too much of it in the body. also his blood thinner, which given that he has the arrhythmia, the heart rhythm problem, he needs that eliquis, but usually we cut it in half. i don't know what dose they are going to give him, but decrease it for the same reason you end up with more of it in the body. that will be monitored carefully. i think those things are routine now and i don't think there is going to be an issue with that whatsoever. again, i want to see if he's also getting the monoclonal antibody or not. sometimes we give both and i've given a lot of elderly people who have underlying heart or lung disease, but the fact he has a mild case may be decided against that. >> john: looks like karine

jean-pierre has taken the podium. >> as you all know, i received a letter from the president's personal physician this morning. we released it to you shortly thereafter in the interest of transparency. i have the letter here and just want to read it through so we can get started. this morning as part of our routine screening program for the president the sars co-v2 virus was detected by antigen testing. this was confirmed by a p.c.r. test. on questioning president biden, he is experiencing mild symptoms, mostly a runny nose and fatigue with occasional dry cough which started yesterday evening. given that he meets u.s.a. food and drug administration f.d.a. emergency use authority criteria for paxlovid, i have recommended

initiating such treatment. the president is fully vaccinated and twice boosted so i anticipate that he will respond favorably as most maximally protected patients do. early use of paxlovid in this case provide additional protection against severe disease. he will isolate in accordance with cdc recommendations. i will keep your office updated with any changes in his condition or treatment plan. i also wanted to provide you with a brief readout of the president's activities today. the president has been working from the residence like so many of us have during this pandemic, doing calls with senior staff, including the steve of staff, myself and dr. jha who is here with us. the president also called senator casey, representative cartwright, mayors of scranton,

mayor of wilkesboro, and representative clyburn. and called a few of his cousins from scranton who were set to attend today's events in pennsylvania, and spoke with an ambassador, and cornyn. you have seen the photo and the video released to all of you out of transparency moments ago. the president will continue to work from the residence. today as you all know as i just mentioned and as we sent out earlier, dr. jha, our covid-19 response coordinator is joining us today in the briefing room and as i tweeted out earlier, dr. jha and i spoke to the president this morning and he said he's feeling fine. he has a little dry cough, as i just mentioned from the doctor's letter, as runny nose, and he's feeling tired but he's working very hard on behalf of the american people and with that, dr. jha.

>> good afternoon, everybody. pleased to be with you. so as she mentioned, i spoke with the president earlier, and dr. o'connor, the president's personal physician. and i he sounded great. mr. president, how feeling? he said i'm feeling fine. he said he was feeling fine, he had been working all morning, he had not even been able to finish his breakfast because he had been busy, i encouraged him to finish his breakfast. in terms of my conversation with dr. o'connor, we talked at length about what happened this morning as karine mentioned. president got his regular testing he does on his regular cadence, after he tested positive, he reported the symptoms that have been described, dr. o'connor examined

him thoroughly, exam normal, at his baseline and then recommended the president take paxlovid. the president accepted that recommendation and has taken paxlovid, his first course already. i want to take a minute to sort of mark this moment. you know, because the president is fully vaccinated, double boosted, his risk of serious illness is dramatically lower. he's also getting treated with a very powerful antiviral, and that further reduces his risk of serious illness. and it's a reminder of the reason that we all work so hard to make sure that every american has the same level of protection that the president has. that every american has the same level of immunity, and why we have worked so hard to make sure that people have access to live

saving treatments like paxlovid. incredibly important things for the president to have, incredibly important things for every american to have and we have worked very hard over the last 18 months to make sure we have plenty of vaccines, that we have plenty of therapies, that people can get tested on a regular basis as the president does because testing allows you to identify an infection early and get started with treatment early. and we all know from medicine that early treatment is always better. let me also take a moment to talk about ba5, if you listened to me in the last couple weeks, you heard me talk about the subvariant of omicron that is now 70, 80% of all infections in the united states. it's a reminder to everyone, if you are over 50 the way i am, the way many of you might be, if you are over the age of 50 and if you've not gotten a vaccine shot in 2022, you need to go get one, need to get one now.

it will dramatically improve your level of protection, reduce your risk of having serious illness. the best thing that people can be doing. let me just finish by saying obviously we work hard to protect the president, that he's been vaccinated and boosted, access to treatments, we also have been working very, very hard to make sure every american has access to the same things. every american deserves access to the best vaccines, the best treatments, and they are widely available and i want to use this moment to remind everybody of that, and to remind everybody to avail themselves of that. get vaccinated, if you have a breakthrough infection, get treated, the best you can do to protect yourself. let me stop and take questions and i know you will as well. >> we'll take questions. go ahead. >> thank you so much, dr. jha. has the president been tested to determine which variant he has? is it ba5 and if so, what's that say about his prognosis?

>> great question. the virus has been sent off for sequencing. usually takes a week to come back, under normal circumstances. he's the president, sequencing will get prioritized, so we should have answers sooner than that. but you can't just tell from a regular test what kind of variant. so sequencing results will be back less than a week. >> has the president had to withhold any of his regular medications now that he's taking paxlovid and what are you doing to mitigate the risk from halting the medications. >> dr. o'connor, there are two medicines he's taking, and both need to be stopped when you take paxlovid. it's a common thing we do. don't need to do anything in the circumstances, stopped for the five days he's on paxlovid and then restarted and it's totally fine and pretty normal practice. >> where exactly was the

president infected. >> where was he infected. >> do you have any thoughts on that? >> i don't think that matters, right. i think what matters is we prepared for this moment, i think what matters is what dr. jha just laid out. if we look at where we were a year and a half ago, this is a president when he walked in, one of his first priorities was to make sure we had a comprehensive plan to get people vaccinated. and so now today, look to today, more and more people are getting closer to having a more normal life. vaccines are available and as dr. jha said if you have not gotten vaccinated, please do. if you have -- if you have not gotten boosted, please do. these are treatments that are going to keep you safe, and i think that's what matters here is making sure that we continue to do the work and the good thing is that the president again has been vaccinated and double boosted. >> we know that rebound covid

cases have been a concern in some individuals who take paxlovid. are there any precautions to try and prevent that and how concerned are you that that could potentially hinder his return to the office? >> great question. let me tell you what we know about rebound. so we have looked at the clinical data on this, if you look at twitter, feels like everybody has rebound, but turns out clinical data if you look at major health systems that have given out paxlovid, rebound rates are around 5%. some studies say 7, 8, some say it's 2%, but single digits. so it happens, it's not that frequent. here is the key point about rebound, when people have rebound they don't end up in the hospital. they don't end up particularly sick and the goal of paxlovid is to keep people from getting seriously ill, so it continues to work. his physician is in charge of taking care of him, obviously the president will continue to be monitored as he is, but

paxlovid is working really well, rebound or no rebound, and the president took it. >> mentioned the symptoms of the president so far, runny nose, fatigue, dry cough. what other symptoms are you looking out for at this point, obviously this is the beginning, and what would warrant hospitalization? >> so, right now he feels really well. our expectation he's going to continue to have mild illness and he's going to be monitored for symptoms. you ask him, like how is he feeling, is he having any other symptoms, he's not. we are going to monitor that and like i said that is the plan right now is that he's going to get care the way he would, he's the president, so obviously he gets extra attention, but i don't think we have any expectations of any other symptoms at this point. >> i'm going to go to the back. >> follow-up on that on a couple

questions. if the president's oxygen level went down, wouldn't he be a candidate to go to the hospital? >> i don't -- at this point we don't -- i want to avoid hypotheticals. he is breathing well, his oxygen level is normal, and he is, you know, i was going to say resting comfortably, he's not resting comfortably. he's working comfortably in his residence. >> hypothetical in covid, and the next question, in this moment we understand the incubation of covid is 2 to 14 days. has the white house reached out to those the president has been in contact with, in-person contact with in that period of time? >> so, cdc has very clear protocols on this. in terms of when people are contagious presymptoms. the white house medical unit is conducting right now a contact tracing, and they are contacting every single person who meets

the definition. >> cdc says if you are in a high risk area and large swath of the nation is at high risk area, they recommend wearing masks indoors. this white house was seeing people back and forth -- in the high category. is there now a push to tell people to start wearing the masks indoors, especially if the president now has covid? >> actually off the top of my head can't remember where d.c. is on the orange, yellow, green map. so i'm not going to kind of -- but the bottom line is we follow cdc guidelines, and the policy at the white house is to follow cdc guidelines in terms of mask wearing based on cdc covid community levels. >> will the president resume public events in five days if he tests negative or will the white house be more cautious and have

him isolate ten days. >> we do cdc guidelines, we go beyond cdc guidelines. isolate at least five days and he will return to normal activities after he's had a negative test. >> curious, what precautions, we saw the president the video put out, what precautions do you take for the person who filmed the video? >> touch on a couple of things. so, look, right now we saw, we heard from the doctor, dr. o'connor, his personal doctor and he has mild symptoms and is continuing to do the work of the presidency from his residence, and i think that's important and you know, and to your question, april, every person reacts to covid differently. so it is a hypothetical, right. we will keep an eye. the doctor will keep an eye on him. i think what's important though and i want to take this opportunity to say this and dr. jha said as well, that he is vaccinated and he is double boosted, which gives him

protection, right, which makes -- makes it, puts him in a good position, just like every other american he fought so very hard for to make sure that we had a comprehensive covid plan to get people vaccinated, boosted, and also paxlovid, right. and so what we need to know, he has mild symptoms and he is going to continue to do his work as we have seen from the video, ashley, i'll take your question right now. look, in the video that you saw there was his videographer was there with him, wore an n95 mask, had the appropriate distance, the six feet distance and the same situation as well with the photo, and as you saw in the video he was outside, so we did that outside, and with the photo, he took off his mask so the american people could see him and see directly the work he's doing and that he's sitting at his desk continuing to do his work. but just wanted to give that.

>> any consideration given to other treatments other than paxlovid, the monoclonal, it's unclear how the two work together, more serious cases for the monoclonal. >> two good choices for therapies. i think there are two good choices. there are people who get both. it's a decision made by dr. o'connor in consultation with the president, the patient, and i also know that dr. o'connor spoke with infectious disease experts at walter reed and george washington university. that was the plan, we would consult with experts. he did, and based on that, that was the recommendation dr. o'connor made and the president accepted that recommendation. >> option if the case were to worsen. paxlovid, say it gets worse. >> dr. o'connor is going to drive that process with consultation from experts, not just at those institutes, but around the country.

and i think he's going to make decisions based on what is happening with the president and his condition. right now the president is feeling well. described himself as feeling fine with mild symptoms. >> read out cases in the courses of paxlovid, if the president had a rebound case, tested positive after testing negative, a second course of paxlovid? >> a lot of hypotheticals there of things that might happen down the road. i understand -- no, it is -- but it's hypothetical, the president feels fine right now. i don't think -- you know, i think we will cross that bridge if that happens, but at this point really focus on just making sure the president continues to do well. >> and very quickly, to clear -- routine screening test and then spoke to doctors about the symptoms as opposed to saying hey, i have symptoms, let's do a test. >> he was scheduled to get a test this morning, it came back positive. and on questioning, as i understand it from dr. o'connor,

on questioning reported yes he was having symptoms. >> and just to add, you guys saw him yesterday, he was in massachusetts, somerset, he spoke for 20 minutes in 93° weather, it was incredibly hot, he was feeling fine. most of us were looking for water and trying not to pass out, the president was delivering remarks on a very important issue on climate change as you all saw. dr. o'connor, you all will hear, get daily updates from dr. o'connor on how he's doing, add that, and just continue. >> was the president identified as a close contact to anybody else in the course of the last 72 to 100 hours? >> not that i know of. >> i'll say this. the process is, we are starting our process that we are -- protocol process on close contact. >> identified as a close contact to somebody else.

>> that i can't speak to. what i can say is our process, as we stated, he is now positive, we are doing our process to our close contacts. >> how many people have been identified as close contact. >> we are just starting our process. >> to this point, how many -- >> i'm saying we are just starting the process, i don't have a number. i told you he called the congressional members that traveled with him yesterday but we are just starting out our process right now. >> anyone else at the white house tested positive this week? >> as we normally do, if they are a close contact to the president we normally provide that information. when i tested positive and i was a close contact -- out of abundance of caution, i was not, but because i had traveled with him we shared that information, but we have a protocol here that we will continue to follow when it comes to who is a close contact to the president and making sure we make that clear

and in december of last year when he -- when there was -- when he was travelling and there was someone who was a close contact to him, we shared that as well. transparent on that. >> anybody else in the west wing or at the white house positive now? >> right now, all i can tell you, if they are -- our protocol is, if they are a close contact with any of the principals we share that information. >> dr. jha one final question if i can. we saw the president's video and i understand the desire of the white house to show the president six feet away, the individual shooting it was wearing a mask. for regular americans watching this, what would your recommendation. should americans who are positive for covid, if they are in public or in any place at any time, always wear a mask. >> so the cdc guidance is clear, people should isolate and they should be -- if they are going to be in close contact with anybody else, be wearing a mask. the president was more than six

feet away from the camera person wearing an n95. you saw that it was outside, so i think it was from a safety point of view very safe thing to do. >> i'm going to call on everybody. i'm going to call on everybody. go ahead. >> can you explain the testing cadence and the rationale behind it. given the rise of ba5 and the president was travelling and big events, why doesn't he get a daily test. >> the testing cadence is determined by dr. o'connor, he gets tested very regularly. i don't really think there is a huge advantage testing like every day. >> tested yesterday morning, for example, he might have tested positive in time to not go on the trip and expose any number of people, right? >> the president -- the protocol behind the president's testing both developed by dr. o'connor and also a lot of vetting. it's what we use to protect the

president and those around him and it's been -- i don't have anything else to say beyond the protocol we have. >> like dr. jha said, it is between him and his personal doctor on that protocol. he has a regular cadence as we have spoken about before. we shared with all of you on tuesday that he tested negative, and the reason why -- you saw him yesterday, speaking in front of many of your colleagues outside for 20 minutes in, on a very, very hot day, and it was not until later in the day, in the evening that he was feeling a little tired and he was tested today. look, this goes back to where we have come from where we started. we have -- the president has done the work to make sure that more than 200 million people in this country have been vaccinated. more than 100 million people in the country has been boosted,

that's because we have a comprehensive plan to make sure people get vaccinated so that they can be protected. so that's what's most important here. he has mild symptoms, he continues to work, and like many americans, this is, you know, we have to make sure that we send out messages to make sure we get vaccinated and boosted. >> one more, the president, and the white house, any regret the recent days and past weeks we have seen him unmasked, shaking hands with people, hugging people, fist bumping, close contact with crowds, in retrospect, was he too casual. >> no, look at this. i've said this before from this podium, we have an incredibly contagious variant, and we have had a protocol that i think has done a very good job protecting the president. the most important part of the protocol, by the way, is making sure that he was up to date on his vaccines and access to treatments.

the president wants to get out there and meet the american people and engage and we always said that this was a possibility, i think i even said it from the stage that this was a possibility. and i think that the protocols have kept him from getting infected but we knew this was a possibility with this incredibly contagious variant. the good news, and this was always the point, the good news is his immune system is very well protected given the four vaccine shots he's gotten, he's getting treatment, he has mild symptoms, he's feeling fine, his words. >> please ask you about the president's age. he's 79 years old. what level of concerns does that add when someone like him tests positive? >> simply i would begin with what his immune status, and

what are his access to treatments, and the bottom line is given how much immunity he has from vaccines, given that he was started on treatments right away, like literally symptoms this morning, got started on paxlovid this morning, i think all of those things very dramatically reduce his risk of serious illness, and that's really the goal here is to prevent serious illness, to keep that risk as low as possible. i think he's gotten that full set of protections. >> in terms of monitoring his oxygen, is that something hourly, something that is done a couple times a day, just walk us through if you could the oxygen levels and concern that could raise. >> yeah. i don't actually know how often. what i will say is he's monitored very regularly. he's feeling well, his oxygen level was checked this morning, it was normal, and the exact sort of frequency of that is a decision between him and his physician and really dr. o'connor makes that call.

>> he said it doesn't matter where he got it. how can it not matter where he got it if that is something that is involving contact tracing. >> i think what i was trying to say is what's important now is that he has mild symptoms, that he is working from the residence on behalf of the american people, that's our focus. look, we knew this was going to happen as dr. jha said, you know, when he joined me at the briefly, in the briefing room not long ago he said this is, everyone at some point everyone is going to get covid. what is important is to make sure that you have, you get the treatment that is -- that we have provided for folks, whether it's, you make sure you get vaccinated, make sure you get boosted, and then we have paxlovid that is made available because of this president. so, what i am trying to say is the moment that we are in right now is what matters as we are talking about the president and

his treatment and how he's feeling and how he's continuing to work on behalf of the american public. i'm going to move around. >> karine, you said he was feeling fine yesterday during the speech but tired later on in the evening. i want to clarify. can you say exactly when he started feeling mild symptoms? >> i cannot say exactly when that occurred. i can say that, you know, he told us this morning he had a runny nose, he had a dry cough, he was a little bit fatigued. he did say he had a restless sleep, and when that occurred he got the antigen test, tested positive and then was given a p.c.r. test. i cannot pinpoint the exact moment. and you know, we were transparent. i got the letter from, we put out a statement as soon as we did the test and were able to put out the information so we

were transparent and giving out the statement, we were transparent in sending out the letter, and we will have daily updates from his doctor on his status. >> in terms of the search for close contacts, i understand that's underway now. but should still be able to be some confirmation of at least some individuals who were close contact. he was with multiple members yesterday on air force one, he was with the first lady of ukraine as well on tuesday, you know, can you tell us if the vice president is a close contact, if those members on the plane are considered close contacts. >> when it comes to the vice president, she spoke to this earlier today, she just gave comments and spoke with the president, i'll let her speak to that. you heard from the first lady, of course she's the first lady and she spoke, she said she tested negative and clearly she is a close contact. look, you know, i'll say this. our commitment since last july is to disclose when the president or one of the four

principals is a close contact of staff who tested positive as defined by the cdc, definition by the cdc or when he tests positive, what we are doing for you today. for example, we were transparent with the vice president, when she tested positive, when the second gentleman tested positive, and we are doing that currently right now with him. so, we are transparent when president biden was a close contact of a staff member as i mentioned in december, but for privacy reasons, we will not get into more detail as it relates to that. so we are starting the process. i don't have a number, a list of folks to share with you. i think that is -- i know some of your colleagues traveled with us, if there are any concerns or questions, feel free to reach out to us. we are happy to, if you have personal questions about yourself, feel free to reach out. >> one more, ashley asked as well i think about moving forward the five-day quarantine,

whether he would immediately resume. you said he would quarantine five days and then resume when he tests negative. if he tests negative on the fifth day, would he resume the schedule as normal? >> yes, the cdc guidance on this is very clear. you have to isolate for five days. cdc says that you can resume after five days without a negative test as long as you wear a well-fitting mask. we go above and beyond that, the white house, and the president will get tested. as long as he is there for five days, a negative antigen test before he returns to activity. >> the white house adjusts with the president with covid, is he staying in one room, rooms, what's the situation? >> the president can be a president anywhere, right. it doesn't matter where he's

located. he has the technology, he has the tools. what he needs, communications, what he needs to continue to doing his job. >> and staffing here been adjusted at all, fewer people around? >> there's been no change to our protocol as of today. >> i have to go around. your colleagues are going to kill me, i have to go around. and we'll go to the back. >> i just want to parse the timeline a little bit. i think there may be a comma in the doctor's statement and i want to clarify. did he start experiencing the cough last night or all of the symptoms last night? >> i guess my question is, when did he start experiencing fatigue, the first sign of fatigue? >> i spoke to the doctor, i spoke to the president. you know, my understanding is, again, his doctor has spent a

lot more time with him than i, i have not spent time with the president, i just spoke to him on the phone. the president felt well all day yesterday, i think late in the evening, some amount of fatigue, after a long day of travel. i don't know, there are a lot of late evenings i feel some amount of fatigue, i don't know about all of you. he went to bed. i asked him how he slept. he said he had a bit of a restless night, and this morning got his routine test that he does and then when dr. o'connor probed him further on symptoms, he tested positive, that's when he mentioned, yeah, maybe a little tired last night. so i really think his symptoms, you could say either began late last night or early this morning. >> did he have any fatigue or funny nose on sunday, monday or tuesday? >> he felt totally normal and said, at least to me he said he felt totally normal all day yesterday. >> any fever or brain fog, other symptoms of covid?

>> no fever. >> and could we get the president's physician here so we cannot play the game of telephone? >> i don't think this is a game of telephone. you have dr. jha, a medical doctor himself, who runs our covid-19 response. you are going to hear regularly through statement from dr. o'connor, and so we are going to be transparent as we are going to be transparent as we have been, put out a statement this morning, we put out a letter from dr. o'connor, you have both of us here taking your questions and answering them. you saw a picture of the president, saw a video of the president, and so we are doing this very differently and will continue to provide information for all of you and also the american public. i'm going to continue to go around. >> while you are doing contact tracing, will you reach out to some of the officials the president met last year while

travelling abroad, or is that too far away? >> contact tracing for people in the last 48 hours who were, after he tested positive. so somebody who met with the president a week ago, they would not be considered a close contact. >> search for people like positive with covid he met like last week or -- >> go looking a week ago to see who might have given -- that's not -- no. the purpose of contact tracing is to make sure that anybody who might have been exposed is so identified so prevent onward transmission. >> thanks. to follow up on steve's question, i think you said there was no change to protocol here. you mean the west wing for change of staffing protocols? >> i think that was steve's question. i don't have an update on that. >> how about the residence, is there a reduction in staff while the president is in isolation? >> we are going to follow cdc guidance, right, which is for the president to isolate and to make sure there is a, you know,

very, very, very minimal footprint. our goal is make sure we keep others safe. >> limited people around the president. >> yes, if anyone, we are going to follow cdc

-- with karine jean-pierre. president biden s