The husband of Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a former presidential candidate, is in a Virginia hospital with the new coronavirus.
The senator wrote in an online post this morning that her husband, John Bessler, started feeling sick recently and stopped going to his teaching job at the University of Baltimore School of Law.
"He kept having a temperature and a bad, bad cough and when he started coughing up blood he got a test and a chest X-ray and they checked him into a hospital in Virginia because of a variety of things including very low oxygen levels which haven’t really improved," Klobuchar wrote. "He now has pneumonia and is on oxygen but not a ventilator."
Klobuchar said she and her husband have been in different places over the last two weeks. That’s why doctors have told her testing for herself is not necessary.
"While I cannot see him and he is of course cut off from all visitors, our daughter Abigail and I are constantly calling and texting and emailing," Klobuchar wrote.
"We love him very much and pray for his recovery," she said. "He is exhausted and sick but a very strong and resilient person."
Yesterday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) became the first senator diagnosed with the novel coronavirus. A statement said he was not showing symptoms.
On Friday, Rep. Ben McAdams (D-Utah), who has the virus, was admitted to the hospital because of shortness of breath (E&E Daily, March 23).
