First lady Jill Biden leaves isolation after testing negative for COVID twice

After testing positive for COVID-19 last week, First Lady Jill Biden left isolation on Sunday following two negative test results.

She had been isolating on Kiawah Island, S.C., where she had tested positive while vacationing there with her husband, President Joe Biden, and their family, the Associated Press reported. He contracted COVID last month and suffered a rebound case after taking the antiviral pill Paxlovid in early August. Jill Biden was fully vaccinated and boosted, and she was also prescribed Paxlovid and isolated for five days.

She rejoined her husband in their Rehobeth Beach, Del., home on Sunday.

Jill Biden first tested positive for COVID-19 last Tuesday.

"After testing negative for COVID-19 on Monday during her regular testing cadence, the First Lady began to develop cold-like symptoms late in the evening," Biden's communications director Elizabeth Alexander said in a statement at the time. "She tested negative again on a rapid antigen test, but a PCR test came back positive."

The First Lady's symptoms were mild.

"Close contacts of the First Lady have been notified," Alexander added last week, noting that Biden would "return home after she receives two consecutive negative COVID tests."

According to the AP, the Bidens had been vacationing in South Carolina since Aug. 10.

President Biden only recently recovered from his own mild case of COVID-19, and experienced a "rebound" case during the course of his illness, after testing positive a second time.

According to the AP, President Biden had tested negative for COVID-19 as of last Tuesday morning, but wore a mask indoors for 10 days as a precaution.

"Consistent with CDC guidance because he is a close contact of the First Lady, he will mask for 10 days when indoors and in close proximity to others," the White House said in a statement last week.

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