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On Monday, September 4, the White House announced that First Lady Jill Biden had tested positive for COVID-19 for a second time. The First Lady's COVID-19 diagnosis comes only two days before President Joe Biden's visit to India for the G20 summit. President Joe Biden tested negative for the virus.
The First Lady's COVID-19 diagnosis caused a massive stir online. Netizens took to social media to let their feelings about the COVID-19 vaccine be known. People went hard on Jill Biden for contracting the disease for a second time even after multiple vaccinations, re-igniting the debate about the effectiveness of vaccines.
One X (formerly Twitter) user commented on Harry Sisson's tweet about the news:
On September 4, the First Lady's Communications Director, Elizabeth Alexander, released a statement on the official White House Website revealing Jill Biden's COVID-19 diagnosis. The statement read:
"This evening, the First Lady tested positive for COVID-19. She is currently experiencing only mild symptoms. She will remain at their home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware."
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre released a statement the same day confirming that Joe Biden also took the test.
"Following the First Lady’s positive test for COVID-19, President Biden was administered a COVID test this evening. The President tested negative. The President will test at a regular cadence this week and monitor for symptoms," the statement read.
Jill Biden first contracted the disease in August 2022, when she was on vacation in South Carolina. President Joe Biden tested positive for COVID-19 in July of the same year.
Joe Biden has a busy schedule in front of him despite the First Lady's COVID-19 diagnosis. He is set to leave for India to attend the G20 Summit on Thursday, September 7, after which he will leave for Hanoi, in Vietnam, on Sunday, September 10.
Netizens question Jill Biden's COVID-19 diagnosis despite multiple vaccinations
20-year-old Democrat and NYU political science sophomore Harry Sisson tweeted a heartfelt message for the First Lady on Tuesday, September 5. Sisson's tweet went viral, amassing over 211,000 views at the time of writing this article.
Contradictory to the request put out by Sisson, the comments section of his tweet was filled with X users questioning Jill Biden's diagnosis and the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccines. People had a casual approach to the new COVID strain and deemed it only as dangerous as the common cold.
Among the plethora of X users who commented that the disease was nothing and that they did not care, there were a few who wished the First Lady a speedy recovery.
The First Lady's COVID-19 contraction comes at a time when the CDC revealed a slight increase in positive COVID-19 tests. The new mutated strain of the virus, BA.2.86, though only detected in very few people, has still got scientists worried due to the disease's persistent mutations.
