Sen. Kamala Harris’ (D-CA) travel has been put on hold until Sunday after two people involved in Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s campaign tested positive on Wednesday night.
In a statement issued Thursday, Biden campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon wrote that the campaign learned the night before that a “non-staff flight crew member” and Liz Allen, communications director to Harris, tested positive for COVID-19.
O’Malley Dillon wrote that Harris was not in close contact, as defined by the CDC, with either of these individuals during the two days prior to their positive tests, but that the campaign is canceling the Democratic VP pick’s travel through Sunday “out of an abundance of caution.”
O’Malley Dillon said that Harris “will keep a robust and aggressive schedule of virtual campaign activities” in the meantime, however, and will resume in-person campaigning on Monday.
Neither Allen nor the unnamed “non-staff flight crew member” have had contact with Biden, Harris or any other staffers since testing positive for COVID-19 or in the 48 hours prior to their positive test results, according to O’Malley Dillon.
“After being with Senator Harris, both individuals attended personal, non-campaign events in the past week,” O’Malley Dillon wrote. “Under our campaign’s strict health protocols, both individuals had to be tested before returning to their work with the campaign from these personal events.”
Harris last tested negative for COVID-19 on Wednesday and will be tested again on Thursday.
Don’t you even think about it, 2020.
Virtue is it’s own reward: get some sleep, Kamala!
This is the abundance of caution approach that should’ve been part of the national psyche since February.
Instead, everything is open and no social distancing.
Kamala will be fine, as will Joe.
It’s good that we are learning this from the campaign itself (apparently). They just need to continue being transparent and cautious, in contrast to the other side. I was really happy that Kamala stayed out of the Senate hearing room.
You get the impression from the statement about this, along with everything they’ve done so far, that they’ve got a systematic approach to keeping everyone as safe as possible. I think it’s actually helping them, visibly getting stuff done in the new, adaptive way the situation demands. Realism and competence. It’s always the right thing, and in this cycle it’s a message too.