WASHINGTON, July  22, 2022 (BSS/AFP) - President Joe Biden's symptoms "have

improved" and his key vital signs including blood pressure remain normal, his
White House physician said Friday a day after the 79-year-old US leader tested
positive for Covid.

 Isolating at the White House, Biden has posted on social media several
times since his diagnosis that he is feeling "good" and continuing to perform
his presidential duties.

 "His symptoms have improved," doctor Kevin O'Connor wrote in a memorandum
to the White House press secretary.

 Although Biden was continuing to experience a runny nose, cough and
fatigue, his pulse, blood pressure, respiratory rate and oxygen saturation
"remain entirely normal," according to O'Connor.

While his temperature rose slightly Thursday night to 99.4 degrees
Fahrenheit (37.4 Celsius), Biden was treated with acetaminophen and his
temperature has since remained normal, the physician said.

 "The president is tolerating treatment well," including the antiviral pill
Paxlovid, used to minimize the severity of Covid-19.

 The highly-transmissible Omicron BA.5 subvariant is currently fueling a new
Covid wave in the United States -- where hospitalizations have doubled in
recent months.

 While Biden is reported to be in good general health, as the oldest US
president ever elected his age heightens concern over the impact of Covid.
 Facing a punishing workload, Biden -- like other presidents before him --
had been showing the strain in recent months: his walk is stiffer, his hair
thinner, and his speech less fluent than when he took office.

 And politically Biden is in a tough phase of his presidency, facing
November midterm elections that are forecast to be painful for his Democratic
Party, as well as declining personal approval ratings.

  The White House has emphasized since Biden's diagnosis that the president
was fully vaccinated and twice boosted -- and O'Connor reiterated that he was
expected to "respond favorably" to treatment.

 "There has been nothing in the course of his illness thus far which gives
me cause to alter that initial expectation," he wrote.

 Biden will keep isolating in accordance with guidelines from the US Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention, and his medical team will "continue to
monitor him closely."

 While other members of Biden's family and many close advisors contracted
the virus, the president had remained Covid-free until now.

On taking office, he made a point of abiding by strict Covid protocols,
holding socially distanced meetings or Zoom gatherings, and wearing a mask to
public events -- in sharp contrast to his predecessor Donald Trump.

 Then-president Trump tested positive for coronavirus in October 2020 -- in
the middle of the bitterly fought election race he eventually lost to Biden.