President Biden blames voice change on 'cold,' not COVID
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President Biden spoke with an unusually deep and raspy voice Friday to discuss a disappointing November jobs report — sparking concerns online and among reporters that he was sick, if not COVID-stricken.
“His voice is deep and hoarse. He’s intensely focused on the teleprompter,” reported BBC News journalist Tara Mckelvey, who was in the State Dining Room for the speech.
Journalist Josh Kruger wrote on Twitter, “Joe Biden’s voice is so low right now he gives Barry White a run for his money. The President’s typical warm tenor timbre has dropped about eleventy thousand octaves, and he’s now a true bass.”
Business Insider reporter Bryan Metzger wrote, “i, for one, like biden’s weird sick voice.”
But the president explained after his speech that the startling new modulation was merely due to “a cold.”
“I’m OK. I have a test every day to see, a COVID test, they check me for all the strains,” Biden said when asked if he was OK.
“What I have is a 1 1/2-year-old grandson who had a cold who likes to kiss his pop.”
The 79-year-old president added: “And he’d been kissing … but it’s just a cold.”Biden’s voice is the latest point of concern for his health as the new and potentially more contagious Omicron variant of COVID-19 reached the US this week.
Biden’s physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, later released a statement in a bid to calm speculation about the president’s immediate health.
“As is readily apparent, President Biden is experiencing some increased nasal congestion this week. This can be heard in his voice and he is feeling the colloquially well-known ‘frog in ones throat’,” O’Connor wrote.
“Investigation has included a comprehensive respiratory panel which includes 19 common respiratory pathogens, to include COVID-19, other coronaviruses, influenza, streptococcus, to name a few,” the doctor wrote. “All of these tests were negative. Including the above, he has been tested for COVID-19 three times this week.”
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, who on Friday afternoon was peppered with questions about Biden’s health, said he “is taking some over-the-counter medication and probably some cough drops and some tea, but otherwise he’s proceeding with his schedule.”
When pressed, Psaki could not say if Biden was tested with a less-accurate rapid test or a more accurate PCR test for COVID-19.
She said Biden was tested three times this week specifically because he was showing symptoms and that he usually would be tested less frequently. “Yes, exactly. exactly. Thank you for the clarification,” Psaki said after reporters expressed confusion about the testing interval.
On Thursday, the president repeatedly cleared his throat while delivering a speech on his COVID-19 “winter plan” at the National Institutes of Health in Maryland.
When Biden returned from that speech, a journalist asked after the president’s health.
“I’m feeling great!” Biden exclaimed.
Biden attempted to spin the worst monthly jobs-growth report of his presidency by stressing gains earlier this year. “We’re looking at the sharpest one-year decline in unemployment ever,” he said, even though there remain 3.9 million fewer jobs than in February 2020.
On the pandemic, Biden said he understood that people are “anxious about COVID,” but that “I was thrilled to see that yesterday we had more vaccine shots administered than any day in the past six months.”
According to CDC data, 83 percent of US adults have had at least one vaccine shot and 75 percent of all Americans five and older have had at least one shot. The highly contagious Delta variant of the virus impeded an initial goal of reaching herd immunity through vaccines and scientists don’t yet know if the new Omicron variant, which has a high number of mutations, will further reduce vaccine efficacy.
Former President Donald Trump, then 74 years old, fell ill with COVID-19 last year and was hospitalized for treatment. Trump’s former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows writes in a forthcoming book that Trump had tested positive for the virus earlier than publicly known and had “gravel in his voice” — though Meadows wrote the same sample was retested and found to be negative and Trump carried on as normal for several days.
The coronavirus disproportionately kills senior citizens. More than 777,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 since March 2020.
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