US Secretary of Defense tests positive for COVID

Austin last saw President Joe Biden on Dec. 21, more than a week before he began to experience symptoms, making it unlikely he transmitted the virus to the president.
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. (Photo: AFP/Rod Lamkey Jr.)
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. (Photo: AFP/Rod Lamkey Jr.)

WASHINGTON DC (Kurdistan24) – US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin released a statement on Sunday, explaining that he had tested positive for Covid-19, despite being fully vaccinated and boosted.

Austin requested the test after experiencing mild symptoms. He is now quarantining at home for five days, as per the protocol recently announced by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

Austin last saw President Joe Biden on Dec. 21, more than a week before he began to experience symptoms, making it unlikely he transmitted the virus to the president.

Austin is the second senior Biden administration to test positive. In the fall, the Cuban-born Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, also tested positive.

The Omicron variant of coronavirus has caused a spike in cases in the Washington DC area. Just before the latest surge began, the city’s mayor had dropped the mask mandate for public spaces. She was responding to pressure from the restaurant industry, but Omicron’s appearance soon obliged her to reverse that decision.

Americans Lead World in Coronavirus Cases, Deaths

For a technologically and medically advanced country, the US has done an extraordinarily poor job dealing with the disease. 

Overall, the US has suffered more coronavirus cases and deaths than any other country.

There have been over 55 million cases of Covid-19 in the US since the pandemic began, according to authoritative statistics from Johns Hopkins University, while more than 800,000 Americans have died.

Within the past 28 days—essentially reflecting the Omicron surge—there have been nearly six million cases, with more than 36,000 deaths.

Public health measures against the coronavirus have become extraordinarily politicized in the US. That began with President Donald Trump, on whose watch the virus first emerged.

Trump sought to minimize the dangers that Covid posed because he did not want to have to take steps that might limit the spread of the virus that would also hurt the economy—and, with it, the chances for his re-election.

But Covid-19 is the greatest public health emergency in a century, and such things cannot really be spun away. In the end, Trump lost the 2020 elections because, as voters said, he did not deal properly with Covid.

Yet the issue remains highly politicized. On Sunday, Twitter permanently suspended the account of a Republican Congresswoman from Georgia, Marjorie Taylor Greene, for spreading Covid misinformation.

Elected in Nov. 2020, Greene is a gun-toting blonde (the Republican base seems to like blonde women brandishing firearms), and she has promoted a variety of dubious views associated with Trump’s base, including that the election was marred by massive fraud. 

Her claim that the Covid vaccine has caused many deaths—which is simply not true—is what prompted Twitter to suspend her account. 

Only 58% of Americans are fully vaccinated, despite the widespread availability of vaccines. According to the CDC’s statistics, unvaccinated Americans were 11 times more likely to die from Covid than the fully vaccinated.

It is hard to understand why people would put themselves at such risk by refusing the vaccine. But a vocal minority remains committed to precisely that position. One website—sorryantivaxxer.com—tracks those who vociferously denounced the vaccine—and then become very sick or even die from Covid.

It makes for a remarkable portrait of human folly.