Barack Obama Just Tested Positive For COVID-19. Here's What We Know
Former president Barack Obama just announced he has tested positive for COVID-19. He would be the second former United States president to catch the virus that changed the world two years ago this month, but the first one who was a former president at the time. When former president Donald Trump tested positive, he was still in office and running a re-election campaign he ultimately lost.
Another difference between Trump's diagnosis and Obama's is that there were no vaccines available yet when Trump contracted COVID. At the time, it was a diagnosis that sent him to Walter Reed Medical Center for several days in October 2020 where he was said to have low blood oxygen levels and been treated with monoclonal antibodies before they were available to the general public. For Obama, things seem to be much different as vaccines are now widely available to any American five years of age and up and treatments have become available, as well.
President Obama seems to be faring well with COVID-19
The 60-year-old former president took to Twitter on the afternoon of March 13, 2022, to share that he had tested positive for the virus that has so far claimed nearly a million lives since early 2020. According to CNN, Barack Obama tested positive while in Washington, D.C. after having recently returned from his native Hawaii.
"I just tested positive for COVID. I've had a scratchy throat for a couple days, but am feeling fine otherwise," Obama tweeted. "Michelle and I are grateful to be vaccinated and boosted, and she has tested negative. It's a reminder to get vaccinated if you haven't already, even as cases go down."
Indeed, members of the British royal family on the other side of the Atlantic have tested positive in the last several weeks, including the 95-year-old Queen Elizabeth II and her 73-year-old son, Prince Charles (via the BBC). Both were vaccinated and boosted and came through the illness fine.
Former president Donald Trump has also urged his followers to get vaccinated, even once saying, "The vaccine is one of the greatest achievements of mankind."