Pennsylvania Rep. Mike Kelly, 72, a GOP congressman, was diagnosed with the virus in March and has since recovered, revealed that he took hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 after he was infected with the coronavirus.
He explained some of his symptoms and revealed that he was prescribed hydroxychloroquine during an interview on The View Tuesday. “I thought at first I just had some strain of the flu,” he said. “I didn’t really recognize it as something that I hadn’t had before. My wife, though, was very, very aware of it and said, ‘You know what, you’re sleeping with two blankets on, you’re still cold, you’re not eating, you have no sense of taste, and when you sleep, you’re sleeping like 16 to 18 hours a day, and you’re still tired.'”
Kelly said that within a day of getting tested, “they told me you have the virus, so what we want you to do is stay home, and we’ll prescribe stuff’ So a Z-Pak, which most people use, and then the hydroxychloroquine, I took it. So maybe that reduced the effects on me, but I didn’t have the respiratory part, which is a real blessing.”
Joy Behar, one of the co-hosts of The View, was shocked to hear Kelly was prescribed and took the anti-malarial medication, and said, “Wow. I can’t believe anybody with a brain would take that stuff, but you seem like an intelligent guy,” she responded. “You’re a representative in Congress. Why would you take that drug? There are terrible consequences.”
“I appreciate that’s your view, that’s not my view,” the lawmaker responded. “And we’re on The View, but let me say this to you. In my case, I can’t say definitively that’s what cured me, but I can say definitively that I took it, and I can say that I went through a period of time that I was sick. I came out of it within about nine days, and then I self-quarantined for another month on top of that.”
Hydroxychloroquine is a medication designed to treat malaria and lupus. There has been speculation but no definitive evidence that it can be used to treat the coronavirus. President Trump, who has repeatedly promoted the drug throughout the pandemic, revealed on Monday that he’s been taking it for weeks. The White House physician later said he and Trump decided the “potential benefit from treatment outweighed the relative risks.”
This article as first published by our friends at the Washington Examiner.
