Biden’s sister tests positive for COVID-19

President Biden’s sister, Valerie Biden Owens, tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday, but her publishing company said she did not have close contact with the president or first lady Jill Biden prior to her diagnosis.

Publisher Celadon Books announced in a statement on Thursday that Owens is fully vaccinated, boosted and experiencing mild symptoms. She will follow recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

“Valerie Biden Owens tested positive for COVID-19 Wednesday after experiencing mild symptoms,” Celadon Books said in a statement.

“She is fully vaccinated and boosted, will isolate at home for five days following CDC recommendations, and anticipates returning to her book tour upon testing negative. She did not have close contact with the President or First Lady prior to her positive test today,” the publisher added.

Celadon Books announced in June that Owens was writing a memoir.

Owens is one of Biden’s closest political advisers and has led all of her brother’s political campaigns, according to the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics. Her positive test adds to the growing number of individuals close to Biden who have contracted the virus in recent days.

A spokesperson for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced on Thursday that the top Democrat tested positive for COVID-19, but remained asymptomatic. She was at the White House alongside Biden on Wednesday for the signing of a Postal Service reform bill, but the president is not considered a close contact as defined by the CDC, according to the White House.

Vice President Harris’s Communications Director Jamal Simmons, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo have also tested positive for the virus, in addition to a number of congressional lawmakers.

The number of daily COVID-19 cases in the U.S. has been on the decline since mid-January, when there was a spike in infections driven largely by the omicron variant.

Owens’ book, “Growing Up Biden: A Memoir,” is set to be released on April 12. Celadon Books, a division of MacMillan Publishing, said the “revelatory, engrossing memoir” will take “readers into the Biden home, watching as the siblings were raised to live with deep empathy, to work hard, and to help wherever they can.”