Report: State Sen. Andre Jacque Breathing With Ventilator After Hospitalized For COVID-19

State Sen. Andre Jacque remains hospitalized with COVID-19 and was breathing with the help of a ventilator Tuesday, according to a report from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The newspaper reports Jacque was intubated Monday. A spokesperson confirmed the report to WPR on Wednesday.

“While his condition is currently stable, the days and weeks ahead will continue to be an incredibly stressful and difficult time for Sen. Jacque’s family, as you can imagine,” the spokesperson said.

The De Pere Republican tested positive for COVID-19 earlier this month. He felt largely asymptomatic at the time but visited the hospital days later with pneumonia, a spokesperson confirmed last week.

On Friday, Rep. Shae Sortwell, R-Two Rivers, asked for prayers on behalf of his 40-year-old colleague.

“He is in serious need of your prayers tonight,” Sortwell posted on Facebook. “He is in the hospital with Covid induced pneumonia.”

The message prompted a profanity-laced response from the senator’s brother. In the searing post, Pierre Jacque said his family has been “brainwashed by alternative facts.”

The senator has been an outspoken opponent of COVID-19 vaccine and mask mandates.

“All of these things that are the common sense tools that we have to fight the virus, he has been very against, so the surprise kind of quickly faded and it was just, ‘Oh crap, my brother is very, very sick,’” Pierre told WISN 12 News on Tuesday.

In an interview with WPR’s “The Morning Show” in March, the lawmaker declined to say whether he planned to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

“I will say, I’m certainly not anti-vaccine,” Andre said. “The COVID vaccine is a little different from other vaccines in terms of the process that it went through, but I certainly expect that members of my family will be vaccinated at the point that they’re eligible to do so.”

Just over half of Wisconsinites are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the state Department of Health Services. Wisconsin is experiencing a surge in infections spurred by the highly contagious delta variant.