Rev. Jesse Jackson, 79, has been hospitalized with COVID-19, his son, Jonathan, announced in a statement, Saturday. He is currently being treated at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago along with his wife, Jacqueline, who also tested positive.
“Doctors are currently monitoring the condition of both,” Jonathan said in the statement. “Anyone who has been around either of them for the last five or six days should follow the CDC guidelines.”
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Jackson is a political activist and politician who was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as a shadow U.S. Senator for the District of Columbia from 1991 to 1997. He also founded the organization Rainbow/PUSH.
Back in January, Jackson received his first dose of the Pfizer vaccine.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted existing disparities in our nation and specifically in the Black community resulting in a hospitalization rate 3.7 times greater and a death rate 2.8 times greater than that of the White community,” he said in a press release, at the time. “We need our strong leadership in our government to have the vaccines administered to people of color as soon as possible before the death rate rises to catastrophic proportions.”
Jackson’s current condition was not revealed.
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