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Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar's husband has coronavirus

Senate works on coronavirus relief bill
Senators return for continued negotiations on coronavirus relief package 08:24

Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar disclosed that her husband, John Bessler, tested positive for coronavirus, according to results received early Monday morning.

"He is exhausted and sick but a very strong and resilient person," she wrote in a post on Medium, noting that she "cannot see him and he is of course cut off from all visitors." 

She went on to say that he began to feel sick while she was in Minnesota and he was in Washington. Bessler, who is a law professor at the University of Baltimore, immediately quarantined himself. He had a fever and a "bad, bad cough." 

Then, "when he started coughing up blood," the senator said, he was given a coronavirus test and a chest x-ray, and checked into a Virginia hospital. He was suffering from "a variety of things including very low oxygen levels which haven't really improved." Klobuchar said he now has pneumonia and "is on oxygen but not a ventilator."

2018 DGA Honors - Arrivals
Abigail Klobuchar Bessler, Amy Klobuchar and John Bessler attend the 2018 DGA Honors at DGA Theater on October 18, 2018, in New York City.  Photo by Mike Coppola/Getty Images for DGA

Because Klobuchar and her husband "have been in different place for the last two weeks," and she is outside the 14-day period for infection, her doctor has advised her not to get a test.

Klobuchar said she is still working in the Senate, which is negotiating a massive bill to help Americans and businesses that have been hammered by the economic effects of the coronavirus.

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