Poland’s former President Lech Walesa, 80, hospitalized with COVID-19

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — An aide says that Poland’s former president and Nobel Peace Prize winner, 80-year-old Lech Walesa has been hospitalized with a bad case of COVID-19. A post on Walesa’s Facebook Tuesday shows him on hospital bed with an oxygen mask on. The aide said he’s seriously ill, but under good care in a hospital in Gdansk. It’s Walesa’s second bout of COVID. Strting in 1980, Walesa spearheaded Poland’s pro-democracy Solidarity movement that nine years later led to the peaceful ouster of communism from Poland and inspired other countries to shed Moscow’s domination. In 1983 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1990-95 he served as democratic Poland’s first popularly elected president.