Kamala Harris halts travel after flying with two who tested positive for Covid

 

Kamala Harris halts travel after flying with two who tested positive for Covid

 

Democratic vice-presidential nominee’s communications director, Liz Allen, and a ‘non-staff flight crew member’ both tested positive

 

Jessica Glenza in New York

 @JessicaGlenza

Thu 15 Oct 2020 15.51 BSTLast modified on Thu 15 Oct 2020 15.53 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/15/kamala-harris-covid-coronavirus-travel-liz-allen

 

The Democratic vice-presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, on Thursday abruptly canceled her travel for the coming few days after two people associated with the Joe Biden-Harris election campaign tested positive for coronavirus.

 

Harris was on a flight with both individuals two days before their positive Covid-19 tests. The individuals were Harris’s communications director, Liz Allen, and a “non-staff flight crew member”.

 

Because Harris and these contacts wore medical-grade N95 face masks during the flight and they were not within 6ft of the vice-presidential nominee for more than 15 minutes, they do not meet the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’ (CDC) definition of “close contact”.

 

For that reason, Harris does not meet full quarantine criteria, which would normally require an individual to be in isolation for two weeks.

 

But “out of an abundance of caution” the campaign has canceled her events through Sunday. She will still attend virtual campaign events.

 

The individuals were not in contact with the Democratic president nominee, Joe Biden.

 

The Harris campaign put out a statement saying the news of the positive tests came in late on Wednesday.

 

It added that the California senator and vice-presidential candidate would “deep a robust and aggressive schedule of virtual campaign activities to reach voters all across the country” and that she intended to return to in-person campaigning on Monday.

 

The precautions, the statement noted, are “the sort of conduct we have continuously modeled in this campaign”.

 

The campaign said that Harris last tested negative for coronavirus on Wednesday and she will be tested again.

 

More details soon …