Dr Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s coronavirus tsar, has contracted the virus.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced on Wednesday afternoon that Fauci, 81, took a Covid-19 rapid antigen test that came back positive.
Fauci ‘is currently experiencing mild symptoms’, according to the institute, and will isolate and work from home.
‘He has not recently been in close contact with President Biden or other senior government officials,’ the institute stated.
Fauci has served as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) since 1984 and is Biden’s chief medical adviser. He has advised seven US presidents.
He was last seen publicly on June 3, when he was a keynote speaker at a City College of New York graduation ceremony.
‘Dr Fauci will follow the Covid-19 guidelines of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and medical advice from his physician and return to the NIH when he tests negative,’ the institute stated.
Fauci is fully vaccinated and has received two booster shots.
He was one of the first Americans to receive a coronavirus vaccine – a Moderna jab in December 2020 at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Maryland. Fauci said the moment was ‘a symbol to the rest of the country’.
‘I feel extreme confidence in the safety and the efficacy of this vaccine so that we could have a veil of protection over this country that would end this pandemic,’ Fauci said at the time.
Biden is one of the few top administration officials who has not caught the coronavirus.
Earlier this week, Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra announced that he contracted Covid-19 for the second time in less than four weeks.
Other high-ranking officials who have had the virus are Vice President Kamala Harris, Attorney General Merrick Garland, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and White House domestic policy adviser Susan Rice, among others.