Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson hospitalised with COVID-19

Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson hospitalised with COVID-19. Jackson and his wife Jacqueline are being treated at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, where he has been vaccinated against the virus.

Reverend Jesse Jackson and his wife, Jacqueline, have been admitted to the hospital after testing positive with COVID-19.

Jackson, 79, has been inoculated against the virus and received his first dosage in January at a high-profile event where he urged others to get the vaccine as soon as possible. He and his 77-year-old wife are being treated at Chicago’s Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

According to a statement released on Saturday by Jesse Jackson’s group, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, “doctors are currently monitoring the condition of both.”

“At this moment, there are no more updates,” the statement said, adding that anyone who was in the area of the pair in recent days should follow public health advice.

Jackson, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2017, has spent decades fighting for the rights of African-Americans and other minorities, dating back to the tumult of Martin Luther King’s civil rights movement in the 1960s.

Jackson has been engaged in the fight for COVID-19 vaccines for Black people, who are lagging behind white people in the immunization campaign in the United States.

“For reasonable reasons, African Americans have misgivings about scientists and vaccines,” according to a statement released in January, adding that if they “refuse to be vaccinated, everyone will be at risk.”

Delta spreading rapidly

He was arrested outside the US Capitol earlier this month during a demonstration asking for the abolition of the filibuster in order to promote voting rights.

In the United States, COVID-19 vaccines are free and widely available, yet only half of the population has been properly vaccinated.

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the extremely contagious Delta form of the coronavirus is spreading fast over the world, including in the United States, where the seven-day average of new cases has grown to 133,000 per day (CDC).

According to the CDC, hospitalizations in the United States are averaging more than 11,000 per day, and daily COVID-19 mortality have surged to 641.

Source: Aljazeera

Saizul Amin