President Biden will be receiving treatment form a team of top doctors at the state-of-the-art facility inside of the White House which even has its own operating theater. The 79-year-old has been diagnosed with COVID-19 and remains in isolation after suffering fatigue, a dry cough and runny nose. His doctor, who heads up the White House Medical Unit, confirmed that he had two doses of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine before he took office.
President Biden also received a first and a second booster shot in September and March, getting the jab in the exam room of the unit. The hospital has around 30 personnel manning the building at all hours of the day, with doctors at the President’s beck and call round the clock.
An exam room, with ICU supplies including the Presidents blood, was built into the ground floor of the White House, directly next to the Map Room – which former presidents used to monitor military activities around the globe. It is also located close to a larger set of offices in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building that neighbors the White House. President Biden will have his condition monitored by the dozens of staff working at the facility and has been prescribed Paxlovid.
Former President Obama was pictured receiving a vaccination for swine flu in the center during his time in the White House in December 2020.
The White House confirmed that President Biden will be continuing to work during his treatment, despite his isolation. He tweeted: ‘Folks, I’m doing great. Thanks for your concern. Just called Senator Casey, Congressman Cartwright, and Mayor Cognetti (and my Scranton cousins!) to send my regrets for missing our event today. Keeping busy!’ Pictured: A White House issued photograph of President Joe Biden at work in the residence on Thursday.
His wife Jill Biden has texted negative despite being a close contact, but if she were to have caught the virus then the top-of-the range facilities would be available to her too. During the height of the pandemic the White House Unit was responsible for conducting COVID-19 tests on journalists in the White House press corps. Any President traveling on the Boeing 747-200B Air Force One also has access to a medical suite that can function as an operating room, and a doctor is permanently on board.
As well as the First Lady, the rest of the president’s immediate family are also able to receive care from the military professionals. Vice President Kamala Harris and White House staff members are on the select list of people who can access the facilities as well. Foreign dignitaries and tourists who are given permission to visit the site are also able to be treated for any pressing ailments.
Medical professionals on the site are able to carry out anything from simple routine check-ups and dispensing medication to emergency responses like resuscitation. The White House Medical Unit works to stabilize their patient in the most serious of cases, before transferring them to a hospital as soon as possible. If the President needed to be hospitalized, he would be taken to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, in Bethesda, Maryland (pictured). It is which is equipped with an intensive care unit, more advanced imaging capabilities and specialists.
Former President Trump was admitted to the ‘Nation’s Medical Center’ when he tested positive for COVID-19 in 2020 shortly before the presidential election. The facility has some of the nation’s top doctors, with 7,100 staff members spread out across 100 clinics and specialties. Trump stayed in the hospital’s designated Presidential Suite, a lavish portion of one of its 88 buildings.
Known as Ward 71, the Presidential Suite is one of six special patient rooms reserved for high-ranking military officers and members of the White House cabinet.
The living room is seen in these photos of the suite from 2007. It is unknown if the decor has been updated since then.
The dining room in the suite is even lit by a crystal chandelier, meaning any President can be treated while enjoying luxuries similar to the White House.
Pictured: One of the rooms of Ward 71, which are reserved for high-ranking military officers and cabinet members.
The suite is ‘specially outfitted with protective devices and communications gear used in support of the president,’ wrote Rear Admiral Connie Mariano, who served as a physician to both presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton and was director of the White House Medical Unit.
Walter Reed also has an Institute of Research at Silver Spring, nearby the hospital in Maryland, where scientists develop vaccines and treatments for infectious diseases like COVID-19. Both the President and Vice President are typically treated at the Medical Evaluation and Treatment Unit (METU). The METU is secure, private and separate from the sprawling hospital’s other wards, and has a dining room lit by a crystal chandelier and a desk a few steps from the hospital bed.
The hospital – located about nine miles from the White House – has 244 beds in total, and 50 ICU beds. Walter Reed also has 165 ‘Smart Suites’ outfitted with ‘two-way communication devices, audio-visual and wireless capabilities as well as bedside entertainment, all of which can be controlled via a wall-mounted, removable keyboard that the patient has access to at all times.’
