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Sen. Amy Klobuchar says her husband has tested positive for coronavirus

The former 2020 candidate said her husband, John Bessler, remained hospitalized in Virginia.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., center, gets a kiss from her husband, John Bessler, upon arriving at a rally in Sioux City, Iowa, on Feb. 1, 2020.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., center, gets a kiss from her husband, John Bessler, upon arriving at a rally in Sioux City, Iowa, on Feb. 1, 2020.Gene J. Puskar / AP file

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said Monday that her husband has been diagnosed with the coronavirus.

“My husband has coronavirus. I love him & not being able to be by his side is one of the hardest things about this disease,” Klobuchar tweeted. "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.”

In a longer post on Medium, Klobuchar said that she and her husband, John Bessler, had been in “different places for the last two weeks” and that because she was “outside the 14-day period for getting sick,” doctors advised her that she did not need to be tested.

Klobuchar, a former 2020 presidential candidate who has since dropped out of the race and endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden, said her husband had grown quite ill.

After a persistent temperature and a “bad, bad” cough, Bessler began coughing up blood, Klobuchar said, prompting him to get a coronavirus test and a chest X-ray.

He checked into a hospital in Virginia and “now has pneumonia and is on oxygen but not a ventilator,” Klobuchar said.

To date, only one U.S. senator, Rand Paul, R-Ky., has tested positive for the coronavirus.