Biden, Picozzi Isolate After President’s COVID Diagnosis

“When I received the news that President Biden tested positive for COVID, I tested myself and got a negative result. I was required to take a test yesterday and send the results to the White House. I feel no symptoms, feel fine and I’ll be self-monitoring,” Picozzi told followers on his Facebook page.

Tufts said Picozzi was at work when he learned of the President’s positive COVID test, and he isolated alone in his office for the remainder of the day. Thursday, and for the next five days, she said, he’ll be working from home. She said Picozzi will also be taking PCR tests in a few days as a follow-up.

“Rapid tests do tend to be negative early in the course of infection and should be repeated after 3-5 days if new onset of symptoms. For exposures without symptoms, it would be best to do two PCR tests; first one no sooner than 3 days after exposure and a second one after 7-10 days (incubation period is 2-10 days),” said Don Thea, Professor and Associate Chair, Department of Global Health, Boston University School of Public Health, and an ABIM board-certified Infectious Diseases physician.

In Somerset, at the Brayton Power Plant, once a coal power plant, now the site of an offshore wind power plant, Biden spoke about a longer-lived threat to Americans than the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change. The President  vowed to use Presidential executive power to streamline permitting for additional clean power plants.

“As President, I have a responsibility to act with urgency and resolve when our nation faces clear and present danger.  And that’s what climate change is about.  It is literally, not figuratively, a clear and present danger,” Biden said during his remarks, noting that the U.N.’s leading international climate scientists called the latest climate report, “code red for humanity.”

“Let me say it again: “Code red for humanity.”  It’s not a group of political official — elected officials.  These are the scientists,” Biden said.

Despite that call for decisive action, the opposition of Republican Senators and one Democratic Senator, Joe Manchin, whose fortune’s derived from coal, have blocked Biden’s $300 billion climate action plan. Acting now on climate is a duty everyone has to the economy and the nation’s young people, Biden said.

“And so does Congress, which — notwithstanding the leadership of the men and women that are here today — has failed in this duty.  Not a single Republican in Congress stepped up to support my climate plan.  Not one,” Biden said.

So, Biden pledged to use Presidential executive power to promote as much action toward curbing climate change as possible.

“And in the coming weeks, I’m going to use the power I have as President to turn these words into formal, official government actions through the appropriate proclamations, executive orders, and regulatory power that a President possesses.”

When asked his view on climate change, the reason his meeting with the President occured, Picozzi said he hasn’t developed an opinion on the subject yet.

On his Facebook page, Picozzi said the meeting itself was was an honor.

“As the elected Mayor of Warwick I had the privilege of standing in the shadow of Air Force One and welcoming the President of the United States to my city. I really don’t care who likes or dislikes him. Even if you don’t respect the person, you must respect the office,” Picozzi wrote.