A newly elected U.S. congressman, Luke Letlow, due to be sworn into office on Sunday has died on Tuesday night shortly after testing positive for the Coronavirus.
A Wednesday post on the Republican party Facebook page made this known.
“Congressman-elect Luke Letlow, 41, passed away this evening at Ochsner-LSU Health Shreveport due to complications from COVID-19, ” the statement reads.
The 41-year-old Congressman-elect who is survived by a wife and two children was admitted to the hospital on Dec. 19 after testing positive and he was placed in intensive care three days later.
Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards said he ordered flags to be flown at half-staff on the day of Letlow’s funeral, which is yet to be announced.
“Louisiana has lost more than 7,300 people to COVID-19 since March, and each one of them leaves a tremendous hole in our state,” Edwards said as he offered his condolences to the congressman-elect’s family.
Regarding the funeral, Letlow’s spokesman Andrew Bausch said “A statement from the family along with funeral arrangements will be announced at a later time,” AP reported.
According to the Johns Hopkins University, there are over 19 million confirmed cases of coronavirus.
More than 338,000 people have died in the U.S. from COVID-19.
