US Senator Elizabeth Warren tests positive for COVID-19

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren tested positive for COVID-19, a tweet from her Twitter account read. The Democrat, who is vaccinated and boosted, said that she is experiencing mild symptoms. 

Warren was on the Senate floor last week before the chamber went on recess.

“I regularly test for COVID & while I tested negative earlier this week, today I tested positive with a breakthrough case. Thankfully, I am only experiencing mild symptoms & am grateful for the protection provided against serious illness that comes from being vaccinated & boosted,” she tweeted.

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“As cases increase across the country, I urge everyone who has not already done so to get the vaccine and the booster as soon as possible – together, we can save lives.”

Warren’s announcement comes as the Omicron COVID-19 variant is gripping the United States. The country was averaging 126,967 new cases per day as of Saturday, as per data from Johns Hopkins University. 

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Dr Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease expert, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the COVID-19 omicron variant is “just raging around the world.” 

He added that “the real problem” for the US hospital system is that “we have so many people in this country who are eligible to be vaccinated who have not yet been vaccinated.”

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The prospect of a winter chilled by a wave of coronavirus infections is a severe reversal from the optimism projected by Biden some 10 months ago, when he suggested at a CNN town hall that the country would essentially be back to normal by this Christmas. Biden has been careful not to overpromise, yet confidence in the country has been battered by an unrelenting wave of COVID-19 mutations and variations that have left many Americans emotionally exhausted, dispirited and worried about infections.