Ex-NJ governor Chris Christie says he’s out of the hospital

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Saturday he has been discharged from a New Jersey hospital where he spent a week, following his announcement that he had contracted the coronavirus.

“I am happy to let you know that this morning I was released from Morristown Medical Center,” Christie said in a Saturday morning post on Twitter. “I want to thank the extraordinary doctors & nurses who cared for me for the last week. Thanks to my family & friends for their prayers. I will have more to say about all of this next week.”

Christie announced Oct. 3 that he had tested positive and said hours later that he had checked himself into the hospital after deciding with his doctors that doing so would be “an important precautionary measure,” given his history of asthma.

Christie was part of a string of virus cases connected to President Donald Trump’s inner circle. In addition to Trump and first lady Melania Trump, multiple people who had traveled with the president or attended events with him recently contracted the virus.

Trump’s former 2016 rival told The Associated Press on Oct. 2 that the last time he was with the president was Sept. 29 in Cleveland during preparations for his debate with former Vice President Joe Biden. He tweeted the morning of Oct. 2 that he had last tested negative ahead of that first presidential debate and was not having any symptoms then.

In 2013, during Christie’s first term as New Jersey governor, he underwent lap-band surgery and lost a significant amount of weight. Two years before that, he was hospitalized for difficulty breathing. The 58-year-old, who uses an inhaler, once called himself “the healthiest fat guy you’ve ever seen.”