Minnesota senator and former presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar has announced that her husband, John Bessler, received positive coronavirus test results Monday morning and has been hospitalized. In a statement on Medium, Klobuchar opened up about her family’s experience with the global pandemic and vowed to work in the Senate to help Americans in similar situations.
“I have news that many Americans are facing right now: my husband John has the coronavirus,” she began. “We just got the test results at 7 a.m. this morning. 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. We love him very much and pray for his recovery. He is exhausted and sick but a very strong and resilient person.”
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My husband has coronavirus. I love him & not being able to be by his side is one of the hardest things about this disease. So many are going through this & much worse. I pray for him & you & meanwhile I will do all I can to get help to the American people.https://t.co/fqQU6tA29r pic.twitter.com/SjyfdQxe1R
— Amy Klobuchar (@amyklobuchar) March 23, 2020
Klobuchar revealed that her husband first began feeling sick with “just a cold” when he was in Minnesota and she was in Washington D.C., but that he “immediately quarantine himself just in case” and stopped going to his job teaching in Baltimore.
“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,” she continued. “He now has pneumonia and is on oxygen but not a ventilator.”
Klobuchar was advised by her doctor to not get tested for coronavirus herself, as tests are limited and she had not been in the same place as her husband for two weeks, therefore was not qualified to be tested individually.
“I love my husband so very much and not being able to be there at the hospital by his side is one of the hardest things about this disease,” she concluded. “I hope he will be home soon. I know so many Americans are going through this and so much worse right now. So I hope and pray for you, just as I hope you will do for my husband. Meanwhile I am working in the Senate to get help to the American people.”
Photo credit: Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images for Yahoo News
