Biden’s Commerce Chief Tests Positive for Covid, Has Mild Symptoms

(Bloomberg) -- President Joe Biden's commerce chief tested positive for Covid-19 on Wednesday after experiencing mild symptoms and is isolating at home.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo -- who is fully vaccinated and boosted -- got the diagnosis through an at-home antigen test, her office said in a statement Wednesday. Raimondo is confident that the vaccine prevented her from experiencing more significant symptoms and is sharing the news of her positive test out of an abundance of transparency, her department said.

Raimondo, 50, will isolate at home for five days and return to the office after she has tested negative for the virus, Commerce said. During that time, she will continue to work from home. She's in the process of notifying people with whom she may have been in close contact as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and hasn't had close contact with Biden, according to a Commerce spokesperson.

The former Rhode Island governor is at the center of many of the Biden administration's biggest economic initiatives, including its push to get Congress to approve $52 billion for the American semiconductor industry to counter China and its campaign to cut off Russia's access to cutting-edge technology over President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

The secretary spoke at the North America's Building Trades Union's legislative conference in Washington on Tuesday, a gathering of hundreds of construction professionals, where she promoted the chips agenda and infrastructure plans such as investing $50 billion to expand broadband in rural areas and boosting job opportunities for women and minorities.