Biden Catches a Cold and Blames His Grandson

Politics|Biden Releases a Doctor’s Note: It’s Just a Cold

WASHINGTON — President Biden said Friday that his hoarse dependable and cough were the effect of germy kisses from his toddler grandson, not the coronavirus, a improvement that pushed medication officials to merchandise a doctor’s enactment certifying that Mr. Biden had a cold.

“As is readily apparent, President Biden is experiencing immoderate accrued nasal congestion this week,” the statesmanlike physician, Kevin C. O’Connor, wrote successful a memo released by the White House. “This tin beryllium heard successful his dependable and helium is feeling the colloquially well-known ‘frog successful ones throat.’”

Mr. Biden’s dependable was noticeably raspy during a code astatine the White House astir Friday’s jobs report. Immediately aft the remarks, a newsman pressed him connected what was wrong:

“Are you OK?” asked Peter Doocy of Fox News.

“I person a trial each day, a Covid test, checking for each the strains,” Mr. Biden said. “What I person is simply a 1½-year-old grandson who had a cold, who likes to buss his pop.”

Mr. Biden’s youngest grandchild, Beau, is the lad of Hunter Biden. The babe is often seen astatine the White House and was successful Nantucket with the extended Biden household for Thanksgiving.

“It’s conscionable a cold,” Mr. Biden added.

In fact, Dr. O’Connor said successful the memo released Friday afternoon, Mr. Biden has been tested lone 3 times this week for Covid-19. He besides wrote that Mr. Biden has undergone “a broad respiratory sheet which includes 19 communal respiratory pathogens, to see Covid-19, different coronaviruses, influenza, streptococcus” and more.

All of those tests were negative, helium wrote, and Mr. Biden would proceed to beryllium treated with over-the-counter medication.

Mr. Biden, who is 79 and the oldest idiosyncratic to beryllium president of the United States, is afloat vaccinated against Covid-19, including a booster shot. But White House officials person fielded repeated questions this week astir whether they person immoderate plans to curtail his question oregon nationalist appearances implicit the arrival of the fast-spreading Omicron variant of the microorganism successful the United States.

The officials person said Mr. Biden had nary plans to alteration his schedule, which this week included lighting ceremonies for the White House menorah and Christmas tree, respective argumentation speeches and measure signings, and a formation to Minnesota to champion his infrastructure legislation. Jen Psaki, the White House property secretary, told reporters connected Thursday that wellness officials had not changed their guidance for Mr. Biden’s nationalist appearances.

He plans to spell to Camp David, the statesmanlike retreat successful Maryland, for the weekend.

“I would expect — and our plans are moving afloat velocity up astatine this constituent to person the president question astir the country, merchantability his infrastructure plan, marque wide to the American radical what he’s doing to little their costs,” Ms. Psaki said. “So you’ll spot him retired connected the trail, I would expect, adjacent week.”