Yesterday the Biden campaign announced that Joe Biden had taken a second COVID test and gotten a negative result. (Technically this was apparently his third in response to the President’s diagnosis. But the first two were simultaneous – a double check as it were rather than a follow up.)
This is a big deal and very encouraging.
Biden’s first test in response to Trump’s diagnosis came only two days after his potential exposure at the Tuesday night debate. But 48 or 50 hours just isn’t long enough to tell you much. A negative test after 5 days puts the probabilities much more firmly only Biden’s side, though we’ll need a week more to really be certain that he wasn’t infected. Current science holds that on average people develop COVID symptoms just over five days post-infection and tests can find COVID in pre-symptomatic people 1 to 3 days prior to the onset of symptoms. So he and we are not out of the woods but probabilities are much more firmly on his side.
