US election: Kamala Harris suspends campaign as aide tests positive for Covid
Joe Biden’s Vice President candidate Kamala Harris has suspended her campaign, after her communications chief today tested positive for Covid.
Harris, a Senator from California, has cancelled campaign events until the end of the week as a precaution.
The Democrats have been very cautious during the election campaign, deciding against having the traditional large scale rallies to stop people from spreading coronavirus.
Biden and Harris have instead held a very small number of socially distanced events, along with numerous online rallies.
In a statement, Joe Biden’s campaign said: “Late on the night of Wednesday, October 14th, we learned that two individuals involved in the campaign tested positive for COVID-19: a non-staff flight crew member and Liz Allen, communications director to Senator Harris.
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“Out of an abundance of caution and in line with our campaign’s commitment to the highest levels of precaution, we are canceling Senator Harris’s travel through Sunday, 18 October.”
Harris’ setback comes as recent polling shows Biden with a 17-point lead over President Donald Trump with just weeks to go before election day.
Some pundits expected that Trump’s recent coronavirus battle could potentially help him improve his poll ratings, however the opposite appears to have happened.
The President numbers are currently in freefall as he travels around some of the country’s vital swing states such as Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin.
Trump, unlike Biden, continues to hold large rallies without social distancing or mandatory face masks.
The President said at a Florida rally this week that he wanted to kiss people in the crowd, just days after leaving hospital with Covid.
Biden accused Trump yesterday of seeing Florida seniors as “expendable”, while at a campaign event in the state.
More than 200,000 people in the US have died of Covid, with Florida suffering heavy casualties.
Polling shows Biden and Trump neck-and-neck in the crucial state.