Rep. Clay Higgins Says He and His Family Have Covid-19

Politics|Rep. Clay Higgins, a staunch hostile of disguise mandates, announces helium and his household person Covid-19.

• July 26, 2021, 12:56 p.m. ET

Representative Clay Higgins, Republican of Louisiana and an outspoken coronavirus skeptic who has drafted authorities to marque vaccine mandates a national crime, announced this play that he, his woman and his lad person Covid-19.

The announcement connected Facebook, which did not supply details connected symptoms, raised galore questions. Mr. Higgins said helium and his woman had antecedently been infected with the coronavirus successful January 2020, astatine the dawn of the pandemic, erstwhile investigating was not wide available. He did not accidental whether helium had gotten an antibody trial to corroborate a erstwhile infection, nor has helium said whether helium has been vaccinated against the coronavirus.

“This occurrence is acold much challenging,” helium wrote. “It has required each of my devoted energy.”

Mr. Higgins besides asserted, without proof, that the Chinese Communist Party created the caller coronavirus arsenic a biologic warfare agent, calling it “weaponized.”

Republicans person progressively stated, with nary evidence, that the coronavirus is human-made and leaked from a laboratory successful Wuhan, China — immoderate accidental intentionally. Although President Biden has ordered an quality appraisal of the theory, astir scientists proceed to judge that the microorganism emerged people from animals. A senior virologist astatine the Wuhan Institute of Virology has strenuously denied the microorganism was created oregon leaked from her lab.

Mr. Higgins boasted successful May astir his absorption to national mandates to combat the pandemic.

“I bash not enactment mandatory vaccines, disguise mandates oregon immoderate signifier of required vaccine passport,” he wrote connected Facebook. “In fact, I americium introducing authorities making mandated oregon forced compliance with aesculapian procedures a national crime.”

In May 2020, helium questioned the usage of look masks, contempt wide statement among experts that their usage was important successful limiting the dispersed of the coronavirus.

Some nationalist wellness experts deliberation that a vaccine mandate could assistance nudge a greater share of the state toward receiving the inoculation. About 49 percent of radical successful the United States person been afloat vaccinated, according to national data.

It is unclear however galore Republicans successful Congress person been vaccinated. The No. 2 House Republican, Steve Scalise of Louisiana, received his archetypal vaccine dose 2 Sundays agone — a remarkably precocious date, fixed that vaccines person been wide disposable connected Capitol Hill for months and that 1 House Republican and 1 House Republican-elect person died of Covid-19.

Mr. Scalise had initially said helium did not request the vaccine due to the fact that helium had antecedently been infected, an assertion besides made by Senators Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, and Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that anyone property 12 oregon older — careless of whether they person had the microorganism — get a vaccination.