Kamala Harris, the U.S. senator from California and Joe Biden’s vice presidential running mate, has suspended travel for several days as members of her staff contracted the novel coronavirus.
Harris was advised to suspend in-person campaigning by the Biden camp when it was revealed by CNN that her communications director Liz Allen and a flight crew member came down with COVID-19.
The good news is that Harris was not in proximity to either person. However, the Biden campaign is taking no chances and the senator’s planned trip to North Carolina on Thursday, Oct. 15, 2020, has been scrapped.
“Neither of these people have had contact with Vice President Biden, Senator Harris or any other staffers since testing positive or in the 48 hours prior to their positive test results,” Biden’s campaign director O’Malley Dillon said in a statement obtained by CNN.
“After being with Senator Harris, both individuals attended personal, non-campaign events in the past week. Under our campaign’s strict health protocols, both individuals had to be tested before returning to their work with the campaign from these personal events,” she said. “These protocols help protect the campaign, the staff, and anyone who they may have contact with; 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.”
The Biden camp plans to ground Harris until Monday out of an abundance of caution. Dillon did add that Harris took two PCR tests since Oct. 8, and both came back negative.
