US President Joe Biden "was declared positive for COVID-19" on Thursday and has "very mild symptoms," his spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.

• Read also: After the climate, crime: Biden tries to mobilize voters

The 79-year-old Democrat has 'started taking Paxlovid', Pfizer's anti-Covid pill, and will self-isolate at the White House until he tests negative again, she said , specifying that the president, fully vaccinated and who received two booster doses, “would continue to assume all of his functions” during this time.

More details to come.