COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) – U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, a provaccine Republican from Ohio reported on Tuesday that he was positive for COVID-19.
Portman, who was vaccinated and received an injection He was informed of his condition from an at-home test taken Monday night, in preparation for returning to the Capitol.
“I am asymptomatic , but I feel fine,” he wrote in an update on Twitter.
In line with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines and medical advice the doctor advised him to be in isolation for five consecutive days. Working remotely this week means that he will not be able be in Washington to vote, he said.
Portman, who is 66, has shattered the vaccine skeptics in his party since the beginning of the pandemic, insisting vaccines are the best way to prevent serious illness and hospitalization.
In November 2020 the doctor announced that he was enrolled in a clinical trial for the COVID-19 vaccine then being developed by Janssen-Johnson & Johnson, which was being managed by a research center located in the Cincinnati region in which he resides.
He said he views it as a way that he could play a small role in the nation’s response to the pandemic. Portman stated that the more people who had enrolled, the quicker the vaccine would be approved by the FDA approval process and become accessible to the general public.
Two other Ohio lawmakers, Democratic U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan (Republican U.S. Rep. Bob Latta), declared that they had tested positive for the virus last January.
