The White House promised that President Joe Biden would not be shaking hands during a four-day swing through the Middle East, a doctor’s order intended to minimize COVID-19 risks.
One week and dozens of handshakes later, Biden’s COVID-19 bubble finally burst.
Biden, who is 79, evaded the virus for more than two years as aides enforced meticulous protections beginning at the start of the pandemic during the 2020 campaign.
Planes ground to a halt. Rope lines were called off. Instead, the candidate was sequestered at his Wilmington, Delaware, home, where a basement studio allowed him to issue statements safely.
When Democrats worried that Biden wasn’t doing enough to take control of the presidential race, the candidate’s chief campaign strategist said he should not yield.
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“I hope we’re doing nothing,” Mike Donilon, a Democrat close to Biden, told the Boston Globe last year. “I hope you’ll ignore this.”
Once in office, the White House began strict testing requirements for anyone in the president’s orbit, with many staff continuing to work from home. The minimalist strategy served Biden well, preventing the now-twice vaccinated and boosted president from catching the infection.
But the precautions that slowed a notoriously tactile politician from glad-handing with voters soon began to slip aside.
Traveling to Israel last week, U.S. officials said the spread of a new, more transmissible variant demanded increased protections.
“We’re taking those precautions to keep him safe and to keep all of us safe,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said aboard Air Force One, adding that the White House would “try to minimize contact as much as possible.”
Days earlier, Biden was spotted shaking hands with congressional leaders on the White House South Lawn, prompting questions about the rule’s timing.
The White House disclosed Biden’s positive diagnosis on Thursday and said he was experiencing “very mild symptoms.”
A letter from the president’s physician said he began experiencing a runny nose and fatigue “with an occasional dry cough” on Wednesday night.
Biden “had a bit of a restless night” and some fatigue after a trip to Massachusetts, White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha said during a press briefing.
Jha is not treating the president, and officials declined to say whether his physician would brief reporters.
Asked Thursday where exactly the White House believes Biden was infected, the president’s press secretary demurred.
“I don’t think that matters,” Jean-Pierre said.
Presidential historian Craig Shirley said Biden’s COVID-19 diagnosis might be the least of his worries.
Shirley said the White House is reacting the way any White House would. But the president faces stark approval numbers as Democrats begin to sour on his leadership after more than a year in office.
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He compared Biden to former Democratic President Jimmy Carter, a one-term president who left office under the weight of the world events that stymied his leadership.
“Carter fainted during jogging. Carter got attacked by a killer rabbit. Carter wore too-short pants to diplomatic dinners. He had a lot of missteps along the way,” Shirley told the Washington Examiner. “But what was really his undoing was his policies along the way.”
