One of the first public appearances of the president, Joe Biden, outside the White House will take place this Friday afternoon, in a place that has a strong emotional load for the president: it
is the hospital where his son Beau died six years ago.
Biden will visit soldiers interned at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland, a hospital that cares for presidents, military personnel, veterans and their families.
It was there that Donald Trump was held last October, when he was diagnosed with coronavirus.
So far Biden has focused on leveraging digital tools to perform his duties in his endeavor to minimize the number of face-to-face meetings, travel, and public presentations: he has been trying to
fulfill most of his obligations within the White House
, with the purpose of avoiding the risk of spreading COVID-19.
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The only times he has been seen outside the presidential residence since he took office were a
trip to church last weekend
and his attendance at the Lincoln Memorial on Joe Biden's inauguration day.
His son Beau was hospitalized there before he died of cancer
Beau Biden, who served as a major in the Delaware Army National Guard, received care at Walter Reed Hospital during the final stage of a long battle with brain cancer, which resulted in his death at age 46.
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Biden's eldest son had suffered from various health problems since 2010 and in 2013 had to undergo surgery to remove a brain injury.
However, throughout that time he continued to serve as
Delaware attorney general
, a position to which he was first elected in 2006.
Before his passing, Beau had indicated that he would run to be the governor of Delaware.
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But even before his death, Biden and his wife Jill
used to visit Walter Reed Hospital
during his time as vice president in the Obama Administration, to greet patients on special dates such as Christmas.
With information from the Associated Press.
