Whereabouts, condition of Washington lawmaker with COVID-19 unknown

The whereabouts and condition of a state senator from Washington state are unknown weeks after his location was last reported at a Florida hospital where he was being treated for COVID-19.

State Sen. Doug Ericksen (R) sent an email to other state lawmakers on Nov. 11 saying he had tested positive for the coronavirus during a trip to El Salvador, according to a Seattle NBC affiliate. In the email, he also said that an antibody treatment for the virus was unavailable in his Central American location and asked the other lawmakers if they knew of any way he could get it.

“It’s to the point I would feel it would be beneficial for me to receive an IV of monoclonal antibodies [Regeneron],” he said, per the NBC affiliate.

He arranged for a flight from El Salvador shortly thereafter, according to a former state lawmaker who talked to local Washington newspaper The Bellingham Herald, and was then taken to the Florida hospital.

No one has since heard from the lawmaker, who has served Washington state for decades.

Multiple sources and people close to Ericksen, contacted by reporters, explained they have heard nothing about the senator since his disappearance, per the Herald.

“I really don’t have any information. It’s all going through the family now,” Ericksen’s legislative assistant Sandy Ruff told the newspaper.

Ericksen, 52, was born and raised in Whatcom County in Washington. He has been in state office since 1998, serving six terms in the state House of Representatives before he was first elected as a state senator in 2010.