Sonia Gandhi, a towering public figure in India and the president of the opposition Indian National Congress party, has been hospitalized in Delhi with “Covid-related issues,” the party said on Sunday.
Ms. Gandhi, 75, was in stable condition, a party spokesman said on Twitter. She tested positive for the coronavirus on June 2. Her daughter, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, reported her own positive test result the next day.
The Congress party governed India for the majority of its history since independence from British rule in 1947, but in recent years its power has declined, while the Bharatiya Janata Party of Narendra Modi established itself as a dominant force in national elections.
Ms. Gandhi was born in Italy and married into the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. She was thrust into politics following the assassinations of her mother-in-law, Indira Gandhi, and her husband, Rajiv Gandhi. In the 2010s she was frequently ranked as one of the most powerful women in the world.
The party has habitually been tight-lipped about her health. She disappeared from the public eye for a period in 2011 to have surgery for an undisclosed condition that Indian media outlets later reported was cancer.
As of Sunday, India was reporting an average of nearly 6,800 new cases a day according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. The figure, which has nearly tripled from two weeks ago, is probably a significant undercount, because of a decline in testing and weariness with the pandemic.
Other political figures around the world have also tested positive recently, including Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand and, most recently, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, who announced his result on Monday.
“I feel okay, but that’s because I got my shots,” Mr. Trudeau wrote on Twitter. He also tested positive in January, a few weeks after receiving a booster shot of vaccine.
Mr. Trudeau met with President Biden in Los Angeles last week on the sidelines of the Ninth Summit of the Americas. Photos taken at an event on Thursday showed the two men, unmasked, sitting several feet apart. Video footage of a different meeting also showed them embracing and shaking hands while unmasked.
Sarah Lovenheim, a spokeswoman for Xavier Becerra, the health and human services secretary, said on Monday that Mr. Becerra, who is vaccinated and boosted, tested positive and was experiencing mild symptoms. Mr. Becerra, who tested also positive in mid-May and was at the summit last week, “will continue to perform his duties as H.H.S. secretary, working in isolation,” Ms. Lovenheim said.
Neither Mr. Trudeau nor Mr. Becerra had close contact with Biden “as defined by the C.D.C.,” said Kevin Munoz, a White House spokesman. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines close contact as being less than six feet away from an infected person for 15 minutes or more during a 24-hour period.
Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona, a Republican, canceled a scheduled appearance on Monday with Mike Pence, the former vice president, after the governor tested positive for the coronavirus on Sunday, according to C.J. Karamargin, Mr. Ducey’s spokesman. Mr. Ducey, 58, is fully vaccinated, has received at least one booster, has no symptoms and is working from home, Mr. Karamargin said.
