UB law professor John Bessler, Klobuchar’s husband, has virus

John Bessler, a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law and the husband of former presidential candidate Sen. Amy Klobuchar, has tested positive for the coronavirus, according to a statement Monday morning from Klobuchar.

“I have news that many Americans are facing right now: my husband John has the coronavirus. We just got the test results at 7 a.m. this morning,” Klobuchar, D-Minnesota, wrote on Medium.com.

Bessler has pneumonia and is on oxygen but not on a ventilator, she said.

“John started to feel sick when I was in Minnesota and he was in Washington D.C. and like so many others who have had the disease, he thought it was just a cold,” Klobuchar wrote. “Yet he immediately quarantined himself just in case and stopped going to his job teaching in Baltimore. He kept having a temperature and a bad, bad cough and when he started coughing up blood he got a test and a chest X-ray and they checked him into a hospital because of a variety of things including very low oxygen levels which haven’t really improved. He has pneumonia and is on oxygen but not a ventilator.”

Kurt Schmoke, president of the University of Baltimore, issued a statement Monday that did not name Bessler.

“We have just learned that a professor in the School of Law has been confirmed as having contracted the COVID-19 virus. The individual is currently receiving treatment. The professor was last on campus on March 11. We are working to ensure that anyone on campus who was in contact with this person can take appropriate steps to self-isolate for a two-week period and stay alert for possible symptoms,” Schmoke wrote.

Bessler, who is known for his scholarship on the death penalty, was teaching Civil Procedure II and Contracts II this semester, according to a spokeswoman for the law school.