WASHINGTON (AP) – Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, is doing “very well” after he was hospitalized for coronavirus, the US president said Monday, while lawmakers from key states said the former New York mayor visited last week seeking to make sure they had not contracted the virus.
The 76-year-old former New York mayor is hospitalized in Washington. He had traveled extensively to hotly contested states in the elections in an attempt to help Trump reverse his election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. On numerous occasions, he had prolonged encounters with local officials without wearing a mask, including hearings held last week with legislators from Arizona, Georgia and Michigan.
Meanwhile, the repercussions of Giuliani’s diagnosis continued Monday: The Michigan House of Representatives announced that it had canceled its voting session scheduled for Tuesday. Giuliani spoke for hours last week before a Republican majority commission in Lansing, Michigan, which investigates alleged irregularities in the electoral process.
For its part, the Arizona legislature announced Sunday that it would close its doors for a week as a precautionary measure for “recent cases and concerns related to COVID-19.”
“Several representatives have requested time to receive the results of their COVID-19 tests before returning to the plenary session, as a precautionary measure,” said Lee Chatfield, Speaker of the Michigan House of Representatives and who met with Giuliani. before the hearing. “The CDC guidelines would not consider them as close contacts, although Mayor Giuliani tested positive, but they want to go further in the interest of public safety. Given the recent spike in COVID cases nationwide, this makes sense, “he added, using the acronym for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Ingham County Health Department, where Lansing is located, reported that several people who attended the Michigan committee meeting with Giuliani on Wednesday should be quarantined until at least Saturday. Health official Linda Vail said she consulted with the state health department, which agrees that it is “highly likely that Giuliani was contagious during his testimony.”
In Georgia, State Senator William Ligon Jr., chairman of the subcommittee Giuliani testified before, urged those who had been in close contact with the attorney to “take all precautions and follow guidelines to ensure his health and safety. ”. On Thursday, Giuliani attended a hearing at the Georgia Capitol, where he was without a mask for several hours. Several state senators, all of them Republicans, also did not wear masks. The Georgia legislature is not currently in session.
Trump, who announced Giuliani’s positive test result Sunday afternoon via Twitter, told reporters that he spoke with his lawyer on Monday. The former mayor had shown symptoms of the disease when he was admitted to Georgetown University Medical Center on Sunday, according to a person with knowledge of the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
“Rudy is doing great,” Trump said Monday. “I just talked with him. It has no temperature ”.
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Associated Press reporters Jonathan Lemire in Wilmington, Delaware, Zeke Miller in Washington, and Ben Nadler in Atlanta contributed to this report.
