Attorney General Merrick Garland on Capitol Hill in Washington in 2021.
Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said Wednesday that he had tested positive for the coronavirus shortly after Gina Raimondo, the commerce secretary, and Representative Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, the assistant House speaker, announced their own positive tests.
The three were the latest in a series of prominent Democrats in Congress and the Biden administration to say they had tested positive for the coronavirus.
The Justice Department said in a statement that Mr. Garland, 69, asked to be tested after learning that he may have been exposed. Mr. Garland, who is vaccinated and boosted, was not experiencing symptoms and planned to work from home for at least five days, the department said. He will not return to the office before he tests negative at the end of that period.
A White House official said President Biden, who has not tested positive for the coronavirus, was not considered a close contact. The official was not authorized to speak publicly and asked for anonymity.
Ms. Raimondo, 50, tested positive after taking an at-home antigen test, Commerce Department said in a statement on Wednesday. The secretary, who is fully vaccinated and boosted, was experiencing mild symptoms and would isolate and work at home for five days before taking another test, in accordance with guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the department said.
Her office said it was conducting contact tracing and was in the process of notifying people with whom she may have been in close contact.
Ms. Clark, 58, said on Twitter on Wednesday morning that she had tested positive for the virus and was experiencing mild symptoms. She said she had been vaccinated and boosted.
“I am grateful to our health care professionals and researchers who have given us the tools to manage this deadly virus,” she said.
Ms. Raimondo and Ms. Clark announced their test results a day after three other prominent Democrats — Representatives Joaquin Castro of Texas, Adam Schiff of California and Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida — said they had tested positive for the coronavirus.
The positive tests are a reminder that, even as top officials seek to pivot away from strict restrictions and encourage Americans to learn to live with the coronavirus, the pandemic continues, driven by the emergence of a new, highly contagious subvariant whose spread is alarming experts.
In March, at least nine House Democrats announced positive tests in a span of five days, with more than half of those cases emerging after lawmakers attended a party retreat in Philadelphia. Two other lawmakers who did not attend the retreat also tested positive during the same time.
Hillary Clinton and Doug Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, also tested positive for the virus in March, as did Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, who tested positive for the second time in five months, one day before she was scheduled to join Mr. Biden on a diplomatic trip to Europe.
Katie Rogers contributed reporting.
Source: nytimes.com
