Meena Harris, the niece of Vice President Kamala Harris, revealed she has COVID and says her friend who doesn’t have her booster shot has symptoms that are ’10x worse.’
‘I have COVID,’ Meena Harris, 37, tweeted on Tuesday night. ‘Based on what I know, after testing negative several times last week, either I infected my friend or she infected me. So far her symptoms are 10x worse than mine. I’m boosted. She’s not. Get the booster, people.’
Vice President Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff are headed for the West Coast on Wednesday afternoon to spend the holidays in Los Angeles.
Harris helped raise her niece and the two are close.
Meena Harris is CEO of her Phenomenal brand clothing line and has written children’s books, including her latest Ambitious Girl, which was released on the eve of Harris’ inauguration as VP. Some critics have accused Meena Harris of cashing in on her aunt’s political career.
Meena Harris is one of a series of public figures who announced a breakthrough COVID case as Omicron spreads like wildfire throughout the country.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said on Wednesday that breakthrough cases are expected.
‘There are going to be breakthrough cases of Omicron,’ she told NBC’s Today Show. ‘But they will be certainly milder if you’re vaccinated and boosted,’
Meena Harris, the niece of Vice President Kamala Harris, revealed she has COVID
Vice President Kamala Harris helped raise her niece and the two are close
VP Harris is believed to be regularly tested for COVID, as is President Joe Biden.
Biden tested negative Monday, and will take another PCR test on Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday.
The White House announced Monday that Biden had come into contact with an aide who had tested positive, having spent about 30 minutes with the mid-level official.
The CDC released data Monday night showing that Omicron now accounts for 73 percent of U.S. Covid cases. The agency also revised last week’s data, increasing the share of the variant from 2.9 percent to 12.6 percent.
This means the prevalence of the variant jumped six fold week-over-week. It has overtaken the Delta variant, which had been the nation’s dominant strain since July.
On Tuesday the president announced the government would be sending out 500 million at-home COVID tests in the new year as long lines for around the country for testing.
He also urged people to get vaccinated, get boosted, and not to panic.
‘This is not March 2020,’ Biden said.
Biden also acknowledged it can be hard to get an appointment for covid testing – coughing into his hand as he made the point, as well as at another point during his remarks.
But he snapped when asked a question about experts who have advised for months that the nation needed a surge of testing, and whether it was a failure that they weren’t available.
‘No, it’s not. Because Covid is spreading so rapidly – notice it just happened almost overnight, just in the last month,’ he said.
President Joe Biden told vaccinated Americans they can enjoy Christmas safely, insisted we are not going back to March 2020 and toned down his attacks on the unvaccinated as he announced his plan to tackle the surge of Omicron over the winter. His battle plan includes sending 1,000 troops to overwhelmed hospitals sending 500 million tests to American homes amid a nationwide shortage and with lines forming at testing centers
In New York and New Jersey, the Midwest, the Southeast, the Gulf Coast, and the Northwest, the Omicron variant now account for more than 90 percent of new cases.
While other regions currently have lower Omicron prevalence, the variant is spreading fast enough that officials expect it will be dominant throughout the country within weeks.
America also reported its first confirmed death from the variant on Monday night, when an unvaccinated Texas man between ages 50 and 60 succumbed to the variant.
However, Biden said this was not the time for panic, citing the fact that 61.5 percent of Americans are vaccinated and we are better prepared than when the pandemic started.
He once again pleaded with the unvaccinated to get their shots – but without some of his harshest recent comments, where he said ‘sickness and death’ awaits.
‘You have an obligation to yourselves, to your family and quite frankly, I know I’ll get criticized for this, to your country,’ Biden said. ‘Please get vaccinated. It’s the only responsible thing to do,’ he said.
He called Omicron ‘serious, potentially deadly business for unvaccinated people.’ Getting vaccinated his your ‘patriotic duty’, he added – while also urging Americans to get booster shots six months after their second vaccine shot. ‘I got my booster shot as soon as they were available,’ he said.
He even credited former President Donald Trump, who said publicly that he got his own booster shot. ‘It may be one of the few things he and I agree on,’ Biden quipped.
He spoke to Americans’ frustration with yet another surge. ‘We’ll get through this,’ he said from the State Dining Room of the White House.
He began his remarks by acknowledging ‘how tired, worried and frustrated I know you are. I know how you’re feeling. For many of you, this will be the first or even the second Christmas where you look across the table being an empty kitchen chair there. Tens of millions have gotten sick, all experienced upheaval in our lives.’
But he said the nation was ‘tougher’ than covid, ‘because we have the power of science and vaccines to prevent illness and save lives.’
In addition to trying to pressure the unvaccinated, Biden sought to shame media companies and personalities who he blasted for spreading and profiting from ‘misinformation.’
‘Look, the unvaccinated are responsible for their own choices. But those choices have been fueled by dangerous misinformation on cable TV and social media,’ he said. ‘You know these companies and personalities have been making money by peddling lies and allowing misinformation that can kill their own customers and their own supporters. It’s wrong. It’s immoral, I call on the purveyors of these lies and misinformation to stop it, stop it now.’
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