Republican congressman Ron Wright has died from Covid-19, his team announced on Monday, becoming the first member of the Capitol to succumb to the virus.
The 67-year-old Texas elected representative died on Sunday. “During the previous two weeks, Ron and (his wife, ed.) Susan had been hospitalized” in Dallas “after being infected with Covid-19,” his spokespersons said in a statement. The Texan had been treated for cancer “in recent years”, they say.
A “fighter” who fought “against cancer and Covid-19”
The President Joe Biden , who has made the fight against the pandemic the centerline of the beginning of his term, lamented the death of the “fighter who fought courageously against both cancer and Covid-19”.
The United States “continue to work tirelessly every day to overcome (these diseases, note) in memory of all those we have lost”, added in a statement the Democrat, whose eldest son Beau Biden had been carried away by a brain cancer in 2015.
The United States, the most bereaved country in the world
On January 21, Ron Wright announced that he had tested positive for the coronavirus “after having been in contact with an individual with the virus last week”.
Ron Wright thus becomes the first of 535 elected officials sitting in Congress (435 in the House and 100 in the Senate) to succumb to the disease. A parliamentarian elected to the House in November, Luke Letlow, died of Covid-19 in December, before taking office in early January. Elected in Louisiana, he was 41 years old . The United States is the most bereaved country in the world by the pandemic, with more than 460,000 dead .