GOP Rep. Kevin Brady Tests Positive for COVID-19

GOP Rep. Kevin Brady Tests Positive for COVID-19
Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) speaks during a press conference on Capitol Hill in Washington on Dec. 10, 2019. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
Reuters
1/6/2021
Updated:
1/6/2021

WASHINGTON—U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas), the top Republican on the House’s tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, says he’s tested positive for coronavirus, weeks after receiving a first dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine.

Brady, 65, is the second House member to report testing positive for the virus this week. An aide to Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), 77, the top Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, announced on Jan. 4 that the lawmaker had tested positive.

“Tonite, the Office of House Physician informed me that I’ve tested positive for Covid 19 & am quarantined,” Brady said Jan. 5 on Twitter.

Vials of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine are seen during a vaccination clinic at the Sir Ludwig Guttmann Health and Wellbeing Centre in Stratford, England, on Dec. 15, 2020. (Leon Neal/Getty Images)
Vials of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine are seen during a vaccination clinic at the Sir Ludwig Guttmann Health and Wellbeing Centre in Stratford, England, on Dec. 15, 2020. (Leon Neal/Getty Images)

“As recommended, I received a first dose of the Pfizer vaccine Dec. 18 & also recently tested negative for Covid on New Years Day. Begin treatment tomorrow. Shld be fine.”

Last month, a nurse in California tested positive for COVID-19, more than a week after receiving the first dose of Pfizer’s vaccine.

Experts say a second dose of the vaccine is needed to ramp up protection against the virus.

Dozens of lawmakers in Congress have tested positive, or were presumed to have had COVID-19, over the past year.

The coronavirus pandemic has infected nearly 21 million Americans and killed more than 357,000.

By David Morgan