Senator Elizabeth Warren Tests Positive for COVID-19

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said Sunday that she has tested positive for the coronavirus, becoming the latest fully vaccinated member of Congress to experience a breakthrough infection.

“I regularly test for COVID & while I tested negative earlier this week, today I tested positive with a breakthrough case,” Warren wrote on Twitter.

Warren, who had received three shots of a coronavirus vaccine, added that she was experiencing only mild symptoms and was “grateful for the protection provided against serious illness that comes from being vaccinated & boosted.”

Though it is unclear which coronavirus variant infected Warren, her positive test comes as top government health officials are warning that the United States is likely to see record numbers of coronavirus cases and hospitalizations with the rapid spread of the new omicron variant.

In the early days of the pandemic, before vaccines were available, Warren lost her eldest brother to covid-19. Donald Reed Herring died in April 2020 in Oklahoma at age 86, a few weeks after testing positive for the virus.

“He was charming and funny, a natural leader,” Warren wrote on Twitter then. “What made him extra special was his smile. He had a quick, crooked smile that seemed to generate its own light – and to light up everyone around him.”

Warren didn’t elaborate on where she might have contracted the virus, but said she’s regularly tested and turned up negative for COVID-19 earlier this week.

Warren was at the U.S. Capitol in recent days along with other senators, as Democrats sought to pass President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion Build Back Better social and environment bill.