Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar has revealed her husband is still isolated at home as he recovers from coronavirus after being hospitalized in Virginia Monday with pneumonia and a cough so severe that he was coughing up blood.
John Bessler, 52, tested positive for COVID-19 this week after he first began to suffer from symptoms 16 days ago.
He was hospitalized with dangerously low levels of oxygen and pneumonia but released again on Thursday to be isolated in the couple’s D.C. home after his symptoms took a turn for the better.
Klobuchar is unable to visit her husband as he still may be contagious and so she is staying with a fellow senator.
She has not taken a test as she and her husband had spent more than 14 days in different places before he fell ill.
Senator Amy Klobuchar with her daughter Abigal, left, and husband John, right, who tested positive for coronavirus on Monday after he began to cough up blood after days of coughing
Senator Klobuchar spoke about her husband’s coronavirus. He is now released from the hospital and is alone in their apartment while Klobuchar stays in the home of another senator
Husband John Bessler and daughter Abigail stand at Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s side as she announces her presidential bid. Bessler has had coronavirus symptoms for 16 days
Bessler is now back at home and recovering some 16 days after he first began showing symptoms as Klobuchar stays in a fellow senator’s home to avoid infection.
‘At the beginning I kind of believed him, like, “Ahh no problem, it’s a cold.” I’m sure that’s what he thought. You know how guys can be, and that’s how he was,’ Klobuchar told CBS Local Minnesota.
‘I would call him every hour, make him take his temperature. He had a very high temperature and it kept going.’
‘John started to feel sick when I was in Minnesota and he was in Washington D.C. and like so many others who have had the disease, he thought it was just a cold,’ she wrote in her original statement.
‘Yet he immediately quarantined himself just in case and stopped going to his job teaching in Baltimore.’
Although Bessler stayed inside his apartment the symptoms did not go away until he was eventually coughing up blood.
‘Pretty soon, when the temperature didn’t go away and he was coughing up blood after many days, that’s when he finally went in and he got a test,’ Klobuchar said.
Klobuchar and Bessler on their wedding day
Bessler got a test and a chest X-ray and was then checked into a hospital in Virginia where he was placed on oxygen but not a ventilator.
Klobuchar herself has not been tested as she and her husband had been in different places for the 14 days previous and she is out of the date range for becoming sick.
‘As everyone is aware, there are test shortages for people who need them everywhere and I don’t qualify to get one under any standard,’ she wrote.
‘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.
‘For me the hardest thing, which I now know every Minnesotan is going to experience, (is) that you have a loved one that is in the hospital or maybe assisted living and you can’t visit,’ she added when speaking to CBS.
‘This is day 16 — no 15 — since he had symptoms, so this is a long, long thing for a lot of people.’
Klobuchar, pictured center with her daughter and husband, has not been tested for coronavirus and says that she and her husband were not in the same place for 14 days before he began to show symptoms. She said she doesn’t want to take a test from another
On Tuesday, a day after Bessler was hospitalized, Klobuchar slammed previous comments from President Trump that coronavirus was no worse than the seasonal flu.
‘This is not seasonal flu. I know. My husband has it. He is 52 & has been sick for 2 weeks,’ she said on Twitter.
‘He coughed up blood & is on oxygen. Many are worse. Listen to doctors!
‘Trump downplays coronavirus by comparing it to the seasonal flu. It’s not a fair comparison.’
Bessler was released from hospital on Thursday and Klochar took to Twitter again to thank the health care workers who treated him.
‘Thanks to all who sent kind words & prayers for my husband John. He has coronavirus & has been in the hospital for pneumonia & low oxygen,’ she wrote.
‘He took a good turn, was just released & is now recovering at home! Thanks to those who cared for him & for all front line health care workers.’
Klobuchar has not been able to return home until Bessler is completely recovered from the virus and so is currently staying elsewhere but hopes to keep waving at him through the window.
‘He still could be contagious, they just don’t know. So I’m staying at Sen. Tina Smith’s apartment that she lent me. So I’m like a vagabond,’ she told the TV station.
‘It’s got to be a moment when we step back and say, I’m doing this for the good of my fellow citizens, not just for me.’
The senator was also involved in the $2trillion aid package that was signed by Trump on Friday afternoon and is hoped to reinvigorate the economy after record numbers sought unemployment benefits and businesses across the country were forced to close.
‘Unemployment benefits have been expanded from where they would normally be, they are $600 a week more than Minnesota would normally get a week,’ she said of the recovery bill.
Minnesota currently has 398 coronavirus cases and four deaths.
Five members of the U.S. Congress have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, and more than two dozen others have said they are self-quarantining in hopes of limiting the spread of the pandemic.
Reps. Mike Kelly from Pennsylvania, Joe Cunningham from South Carolina, Mario Diaz-Balart from Florida and Ben McAdams from Utah have all tested positive, as has Kentucky Senator Rand Paul.
Senators Mitt Romney and Mike Lee are in quarantine after spending time with Paul.
At least four other senators previously self-quarantined. They are Republicans Cory Gardner, Lindsey Graham, Rick Scott and Ted Cruz. All have since returned to public life.
More than two dozen House members have self-quarantined, some after exposure to Diaz-Balart or McAdams, and others after contacts with their constituents or staffers who later tested positive. Not all are still in isolation.
Two prominent Democratic House members, Ayanna Pressley and Katie Porter, said Thursday they had tested negative a day after they began self-quarantine.
Other members who have self-quarantined include: Republicans Steve Scalise, Mark Meadows, Tom Cole, Doug Collins, Drew Ferguson, Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar and Ann Wagner, along with Democrats Don Beyer, Anthony Brindisi, Julia Brownley, Jason Crow, Sharice Davids, Kendra Horn, Andy Kim, Seth Moulton, Gwen Moore, Stephanie Murphy, Ben Ray Lujan, David Price, Kathleen Rice, David Schweikert and John Yarmuth.