Utah Sen. Mike Lee 'getting better every day' after COVID-19 diagnosis

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SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee is improving Monday after testing positive for COVID-19 last week.

“He’s getting better every day,” said Lee spokesman Conn Carroll.

Carroll did not disclose any symptoms Lee might be experiencing. He said the senator is working from isolation in Washington, D.C.

Lee announced last Friday that he had come down with the coronavirus, just hours after President Donald Trump tweeted that he and first lady Melania Trump tested positive for COVID-19.

Lee said he was tested Thursday after having symptoms consistent with longtime allergies. Unlike the test he said he took at the White House a few day earlier, the result was positive.

Lee attended the Rose Garden ceremony Sept. 26 when Trump announced the nomination of federal appeals court Judge Amy Coney Barrett to fill the U.S. Supreme Court vacancy left by the recent death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. CNN video of the event shows Lee hugging and shaking hands with other people while holding a mask in his hand.

The senator met with Barrett on Tuesday at the Capitol and posed for pictures. Neither was wearing a mask or social distancing.

Lee was among three senators who tested positive in a 24-hour period, the others being Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, and Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C.

Tillis and Lee are members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is scheduled to start confirmation hearings for Barrett on Oct. 12.

Lee said he has told Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., that he will be back for the hearings.