Ethan Miller / Getty Staff
- Sen. Kamala Harris is canceling her campaign travel through Sunday, after two people in her campaign traveling party tested positive for COVID-19.
- Harris’ communications director Liz Allen and a flight crew member, who is not a campaign staffer, recently tested positive for the disease, the Biden campaign said in a statement on Thursday.
- Harris was not in close contact with either individual but will still halt in-person campaigning out of an abundance of caution.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Kamala Harris is canceling her campaign travel through Sunday, after two people in her campaign traveling party tested positive for COVID-19.
Biden campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon announced in a Thursday statement that Harris’ communications director Liz Allen and a flight crew member, who is not on her campaign staff, recently tested positive for the disease.
Harris was not in “close contact” with either of the people in the 48 hours before their positive test results and thus does not need to quarantine under the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidelines, the Biden campaign said, but Harris will still hold off on traveling and do virtual events instead “out of an abundance of caution.”
Harris, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has been participating in the confirmation hearings for Judge Amy Coney Barrett remotely, via videoconference. The campaign said she will resume in-person campaigning on September 19.
The campaign said that Harris was on a flight on October 8 with the two individuals who tested positive but was wearing a face mask and maintaining social distance.
Harris and her husband Doug Emhoff, who joins her on the campaign trail, are regularly tested for COVID-19, with the California Democrat most recently testing negative on Wednesday, the campaign stated.
Because he did not come into any contact with those who tested positive, Emhoff will resume in-person campaigning on Friday. The campaign will also conduct contact tracing to alert other campaign staff who could have been exposed to the two who tested positive.
The COVID-19 pandemic has roiled the final weeks of the 2020 presidential campaign, with both President Donald Trump, members of his staff, and now the Biden campaign having a staffer in their ranks test positive for COVID-19.
Trump and First Lady Melania Trump announced on October 2 that they had contracted the illness.
Shortly after, a number of White House staffers and other high-profile individuals who attended Barrett’s September 26 nomination ceremony at the Rose Garden also announced testing positive for coronavirus.
The White House was heavily criticized both for the outbreak occurring in the first place and for its lack of transparency with regards Trump’s health as well as who all had tested positive.
While attendees at the Rose Garden event were administered rapid tests beforehand, not all wore masks and attendees sat close together and socialized with hand shakes and hugs after the event.
Trump testing positive also upended the plans for the second presidential debate between Biden and Trump, a townhall-style event moderated by C-SPAN’s Steve Scully that was set to take place today in Miami, Florida.
The Commission on Presidential Debates canceled the debate after the Trump and Biden camps came to an impasse over whether it should be virtual or held with additional safety precautions due to Trump’s positive COVID-19 test.
The Biden campaign drew a not-so-subtle contrast with the Trump camp in its statement, stating, “The importance of having such protocols — which include testing before resuming duties, regular testing while working in-person, isolation after time off, and masking and distancing while on campaign duties, have been illustrated once again.”
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