Atlanta mayor says she has tested positive for COVID-19

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms (D) announced on Monday that she had tested positive for the coronavirus.

“COVID-19 has literally hit home. I have had NO symptoms and have tested positive,” Bottoms tweeted.

COVID-19 has literally hit home. I have had NO symptoms and have tested positive.

— Keisha Lance Bottoms (@KeishaBottoms) July 6, 2020

The mayor has gained increased national prominence in recent weeks, first for her efforts to calm protests in her city sparked by the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died at the hands of a white Minneapolis police officer in May, and then after Atlanta experienced its own fatal police shooting the following month. 

Rayshard Brooks, 27, was shot and killed in June, setting off renewed protests and leading Bottoms to announce Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields’s resignation from the department.

Garrett Rolfe, the officer who fatally shot Brooks, was fired and has been charged with murder, while the other officer present, Devin Brosnan, has been charged with aggravated assault. 

Over the weekend, a series of shootings led to multiple deaths, prompting Bottoms to call for an end to the violence. Two of the deaths, including that of an 8-year-old girl, were near the Wendy’s where Brooks died last month.

“We are shooting each other up on our streets in this city. And you shot and killed a baby,” Bottoms said during a press conference on Sunday. “And there wasn’t one shooter. There were at least two shooters. An 8-year-old baby. We are doing each other more harm than any police officer on this force.”

Bottoms’s announcement came shortly after Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) said he was deploying the state’s National Guard to the city after the shootings. The governor had threatened to “take action” without local leaders to restore peace in the city.

Bottoms has been floated as a possible Democratic vice presidential pick, with Politico reporting last month that she was being vetted to potentially become Joe Biden’s running mate. 

Biden has pledged to choose a female running mate, and calls for him to choose a woman of color have risen in recent months. A USA Today-Suffolk University poll from last week found that 72 percent of Democrats say it’s “somewhat” or “very important” for the former vice president to choose a woman of color.

Georgia has confirmed 97,064 cases of the coronavirus since the beginning of the pandemic, leading to at least 2,878 deaths, according to the state’s health department. The state has seen a recent rise in cases, with its highest increase occurring on Thursday with 2,886 new cases.