A staff member for Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser died after testing positive for the novel coronavirus, the mayor announced Friday.
“A member of my team who worked in the office of legal counsel recently tested positive for Covid-19 and he passed away this morning,” Bowser said at a press conference, as reported by CNN.
“My prayers right now are with his family, his entire team and of course we will be supporting them during this very difficult time,” Bowser added.
CNN reported that Bowser later identified the staffer as George Valentine, who was the deputy director of the Mayor’s Office of Legal Counsel. The mayor further said Valentine did not know when he had been diagnosed but had been admitted to the hospital on Wednesday.
“It’s devastating for everybody, of course. We’re very sorry,” the mayor said.
The mayor further told reporters that she didn’t have direct contact with Valentine and that her staff was “contact tracing” to determine how he had contracted the virus, which has infected 267 people in the nation’s capital, killing three.
As CNN reported, “Valentine had worked in the DC Attorney General’s office for nearly a decade before joining the mayor’s office in March 2019, according to his LinkedIn profile.”
The coronavirus has infected more than 600,000 people around the world in 177 countries and regions, claiming 28,823 lives so far, according to a map created by the Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering. The U.S. now has 105,470 confirmed cases and 1,709 confirmed deaths, most of which are in New York City. There have been 450 deaths in the Big Apple, the most deaths in any state by far.
Last week, President Donald Trump announced additional helps for states hit hardest by the coronavirus: California, New York, and Washington. As The Daily Wire previously reported:
During a press conference Sunday evening, Trump announced that he had directed FEMA to set up emergency hospitals in California, New York, and Washington, the three states hit hardest by the coronavirus. California is set to receive eight large medical stations with 2,000 beds, New York will receive four large medical stations with 1,000 beds, and Washington will receive three large medical stations and four small medical stations with 1,000 beds total. Each state will also receive thousands of respirators, surgical masks, face shields, coveralls, and gloves. The New York Post reported that Trump said during his press conference that “186,416 N95 respirators, 444,000 O-78 surgical masks, 84,560 face shields, 68,944 surgical masks, 352 coverall, 245,486 gloves have been sent to New York, which had at least 15,000 cases of the virus, with 10,000 in the five boroughs.”
In addition to the emergency hospitals, Trump also announced that he was activating two U.S. Navy hospital ships – one on each coast – to assist with coronavirus medical needs.
Trump had been working already to find cures and vaccines for the coronavirus. He allowed a malaria drug that had shown promise at combating the disease to be used for patients, something the left-leaning media criticized.