Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has tested positive for the coronavirus, said Sergio Gor, Paul’s Deputy Chief of Staff, on March 22.
“Senator Rand Paul has tested positive for COVID-19. He is feeling fine and is in quarantine. He is asymptomatic and was tested out of an abundance of caution due to his extensive travel and events,” said Gor.
Gor said that Paul “was not aware of any direct contact with any infected person.”
Gor explained why Paul decided to get tested for CORVID-19 when he was not having any symptoms.
“Similar to the President and the Vice President, Senator Rand Paul decided to get tested after attending an event where two individuals subsequently tested positive for COVID-19, even though he wasn’t aware of any direct contact with either one of them. Additionally, due to a prior lung injury, and subsequent surgery on his lung, Senator Paul is in a higher risk category as it relates to pulmonary issues,” Gor said.
Paul is the first senator to have tested positive, but two members of the House made similar announcements last week — Repreentatives Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) and Ben McAdams (D-Utah).
Paul shut down his Washington, D.C., Senate office 10 days ago and has been working remotely, so “virtually no staff has had contact with Senator Rand Paul,” his office said.
The senator’s office also said, “[Paul] expects to be back in the Senate after his quarantine period ends and will continue to work for the people of Kentucky at this difficult time.”
Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah) told reporters on March 22 that senators and others who have interacted recently with Paul will seek advice on whether they should self-quarantine.
Romney said that he wished Paul “the very best,” and added that he and his colleagues were “praying for him.”
“All the senators are going to seek medical advice as to what action we should take, to make sure in any way that we don’t spread this virus ourselves,” Romney continued. “We had a lunch together with Rand, and hope he’s doing very well, but we have to determine whether any of us should self-quarantine as a result of being in the same room.”
A day after the announcement about Paul’s diagnosis, Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) said that that her husband, John Bessler, has tested positive for coronavirus and is currently being treated in a Virginia hospital.
Klobuchar said her husband just received the results of his COVID-19 test this morning. She said her husband, who teaches at the University of Baltimore’s law school, started to feel sick while in the Washington, D.C., area. She noted, “like so many others who have had the disease, he thought it was just a cold.”
“Yet he immediately quarantined himself just in case and stopped going to his job teaching in Baltimore,” Klobuchar continued. “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.”
She did not say if she had undergone testing for the virus herself.
Photo: AP Images
Warren Mass has served The New American since its launch in 1985 in several capacities, including marketing, editing, and writing. Since retiring from the staff several years ago, he has been a regular contributor to the magazine. Warren writes from Texas and can be reached at [email protected].
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