Boston City Councilor-elect Kendra Hicks tests positive for COVID-19

The soon-to-be District 6 councilor is “feeling better” and doesn’t think she got the virus on the campaign trail.

Kendra Hicks won the election for District 6 city councilor. Jermaine Regis

Just days after winning the election to become District 6’s next city councilor, Kendra Hicks says she has tested positive for COVID-19.

In a series of tweets Saturday, the Boston city councilor-elect said she is fully vaccinated and believes the exposure happened at her home, “not on the campaign trail.” According to Hicks, a family member who had come to visit also tested positive for the disease.

Hicks said her entire campaign team and family had gotten tests that came back negative on Monday in preparation for Election Day, and that she wore a mask indoors and outdoors on Tuesday since she was “going to be around so many people.” As of Friday, the 32-year-old said her campaign team and family, all of whom are fully vaccinated, had gotten subsequent negative tests.

“It looks like it’s just me with the positive test,” Hicks wrote. “I want folks to be safe and healthy so it’s important to give you the information I have in case we were in close proximity to each other, even with masks on!”

1. exposure happened at my home not on the campaign trail. a family member who came to visit tested positive.

2. on Monday night our entire campaign team got tested in prep. for the e-day. we all tested negative including my son and my body person. (we’re all fully vaxed)

— Kendra Hicks (@hicks4district6) November 6, 2021

so, it looks like it’s just me with the positive test.

I want folks to be safe and healthy so it’s important to give you the information I have in case we were in close proximity to each other, even with masks on!

if you don’t feel well, go get tested.

— Kendra Hicks (@hicks4district6) November 6, 2021

She encouraged anyone who doesn’t feel well to get tested.

Hick tweeted Sunday that she was “feeling better” and was in good spirits, despite loosing her sense of smell.

“Found out because my kid was sitting in a dirty diaper for god knows how long before I noticed,” she said.

feeling better! sense of smell is gone though😃

found out because my kid was sitting in a dirty diaper for god knows how long before I noticed.

— Kendra Hicks (@hicks4district6) November 8, 2021

Hicks, the director of radical philanthropy at the Boston-based nonprofit RESIST, won the general election last Tuesday for outgoing City Councilor Matt O’Malley’s seat representing District 6, which includes Jamaica Plain, West Roxbury, and parts of Roslindale and Roxbury.

A democratic socialist, Hicks will be the first Afro-Latina and Black councilor to represent the district, which until now had exclusively elected people of Irish-American heritage, according to the Bay State Banner.

“There’s an ongoing belief that our representatives should be a certain kind of way, look a certain kind of way, have certain kind of experiences,” Hicks told the Banner after the election. “I think that everything I’ve been through … puts me closer to the issues that most of the people in our district face.”