CBS has confirmed that the company’s President and CEO George Cheeks tested positive for COVID-19 on 5 May, just days after sitting next to US President Joe Biden and the First Lady at the White House Correspondents Association dinner (WHC) last weekend.
Cheeks, who oversees CBS News, Sports, Entertainment and CBS Studios, is “feeling fine and working from home”, the company said in a statement.
The CBS chief executive, who is fully vaccinated and boosted, followed all screening protocols and tested negative on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday before testing positive on Thursday, according to the statement.
Outgoing White House press secretary Jen Psaki, for her part, said that Biden tested negative on Tuesday, two days after the White House event, which typically comprises hundreds of print, broadcast, digital and radio journalists. It remains unclear whether the 46th US president has tested again since.
The developments come after an array of members of Biden’s administration tested positive for the coronavirus in recent months.
On 26 April, Vice President Kamala Harris took rapid and PCR tests that both came back positive. She went into self-isolation at her Washington residence and did not attend the White House Correspondent's Dinner.
In March, Jen Psaki came down with COVID, which reportedly became the White House press secretary's second bout with the virus, after she contracted the disease in October 2021.
The New York Times reported high-profile guests that tested positive for COVID days after the WHC dinner include Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and several journalists, among them ABC News' Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl, who also shook hands with POTUS and Voice of America National Correspondent, Steve Herman.
The Johns Hopkins University’s latest estimates have meanwhile indicated that the US’ coronavirus death toll currently stands at 997,503, while NBC News’ current tally revealed that the country has already surpassed one million COVID fatalities.