Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms tests positive for COVID-19
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said Monday that she had tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.
Bottoms made the announcement on Twitter, saying she has “NO symptoms.” Coronavirus has so far infected 2.9 million in the United States, resulting in more than 130,000 deaths.
COVID-19 has literally hit home. I have had NO symptoms and have tested positive.
— Keisha Lance Bottoms (@KeishaBottoms) July 6, 2020
Bottoms is believed to be on a shortlist of possible running mates for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. She has been critical of Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s decision in April to reopen businesses that the state had shuttered to stop the spread of COVID-19.
“It concerns me deeply that we are still seeing an upward trend in our state and we are rushing to reopen businesses,” Bottoms told CBS News on April 22, adding, “What I’ve said is I hope the governor is right and I’m wrong, because if he’s wrong more people will die.”
The mayor’s profile has risen sharply in recent months as protests over the killing of George Floyd spilled onto the streets of Atlanta. She has instituted numerous criminal justice reforms in her city but has also called on citizens to protest peacefully.
“People who respect peaceful and powerful protests are doing it during the day, before curfew, and the people who want to wreak havoc, the cowards who want to wreak havoc, are coming out under the cover of darkness,” Bottoms told Yahoo News in an interview last month.
On Sunday, hours after an 8-year-old girl was fatally shot at a protest near a fast food restaurant where Rayshard Brooks was killed by police on June 12, Bottoms made an appeal to those who had attended the demonstration.
“I am just asking you to please honor this baby’s life,” Bottoms said at a news conference. “Please, if you know who did this, please turn them in. These people are a danger to all of us.”
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