Joe Biden has been forced to pull out of a campaign speech after contracting COVID.
The US president was due to deliver an address to UnidosUS – the nation’s largest Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organisation – in Las Vegas later today.
Mr Biden is experiencing mild symptoms, the White House said, including “general malaise” from the infection.
He will return to Delaware to self-isolate and from where he will “continue to carry out all of his duties fully during that time”, Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.
Biden suffering ‘general malaise’: Follow latest on US presidential race
Mr Biden – who is facing mounting pressure to quit the presidential run over his age – wasn’t wearing a mask as he boarded Air Force One from Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas.
Asked by the press how he was feeling, the 81-year-old said: “Good. I feel good.”
He then walked cautiously up the stairs to his plane.
An official said Mr Biden presented this afternoon with upper respiratory symptoms, including a runny nose and a cough.
The president is vaccinated and boosted, they added.
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It comes just hours after an excerpt from a recorded interview emerged in which Mr Biden said he would only consider dropping out of the presidential race, which is set to be a rematch against former Republican president Donald Trump, if he was told to do so because of a medical condition.
Asked by Ed Gordon of BET News whether there was anything which would make him rethink his candidacy for a second term in the White House, Mr Biden said: “If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, you got this problem and that problem”.
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Concerns around Mr Biden’s health have risen since his poor showing in a TV debate with Mr Trump, the Republican nominee.
The president has since insisted he is “firmly committed” to staying in the race.
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