Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his wife have both tested negative for the coronavirus, but some public health specialists, including a UC Berkeley infectious disease expert, say it could be days before they can be assured they not infected.
“Biden is not out of the woods yet,” said Dr. John Swartzberg of UC Berkeley on Friday.
“If he was infected on Tuesday [during the debate] you wouldn’t expect him to be positive today… I am more interested in how he tests tomorrow and Sunday and Monday,” Swartzberg said. “That is when we are really want to look at the test.”
About 50% of people infected with the coronavirus never develop symptoms or COVID-19 but still are contagious, he said. Trump and his wife definitely have COVID-19 because they are both suffering symptoms, he added.
“He has COVID-19, and she has COVID-19 as well,” Swartzberg said.
After learning that his aide Hope Hicks had tested positive for the virus, Trump traveled to a fundraising event in New Jersey on Thursday where he reportedly mingled with many people.
“He certainly exposed a lot of people,” Swartzberg said. “How likely they are going to get infected is dependent upon so many other things.”
Swartzberg said these factors include Trump’s proximity to others, how long that proximity lasted and air circulation.
“The bottom line from a public health contact tracing perspective is that, if he was within six feet of people for 15 minutes or more, they would be considered close contacts and should go into quarantine.”
He said Trump was likely already infected by Tuesday, despite the negative test result before the debate. Trump may not have had enough of the virus to show up on the test, particularly if it wasn’t very sensitive, Swartzberg said.
“So the negative test gives some degree of comfort, though not complete comfort, that he may not have been contagious” Tuesday.
First Lady Melania Trump also was likely to already have been infected during the debate. She and other Trump family members removed their face masks while in the audience, a violation of health rules established by the Cleveland Clinic for the event.
Swartzberg said Biden does not need to quarantine now because he was 12 feet away from Trump during the debate. Still, Biden remains vulnerable because Trump was “screaming frequently” during the event, the physician said.
He said the timing of symptoms experienced by Trump, his wife and aide Hope Hicks suggests they were all infected at roughly the same time and that it was less likely that Hicks infected the president and his wife.
“It usually takes on average five and half days before an infected person develops symptoms,” he said
