Texas Governor Greg Abbott has contracted the coronavirus, his office confirmed in a statement, saying he caught the illness despite being fully vaccinated, and will isolate in the executive mansion until he tests negative.
“The Governor has been testing daily, and today was the first positive test result,” communications director Mark Miner said in a statement on Tuesday, adding that Abbott is currently “in good health and experiencing no symptoms” from the virus.
Miner also noted that Abbott would receive Regeneron – a monoclonal antibody treatment, or special lab-created proteins which mimic the immune response to harmful pathogens, like viruses. Though the governor is asymptomatic, such treatments can help to reduce the chance of severe illness with Covid-19, according to the FDA.
Last Friday, Abbott unveiled a plan to establish nine monoclonal antibody infusion sites across Texas in an effort to take pressure off of hospitals. As of Monday, more than 11,500 Covid-19 patients were hospitalized in the state, while the number of ICU beds available had dwindled to 322.
The governor also recently called in 2,500 out-of-state healthcare workers to support hospitals and “mitigate the surge of Covid-19 cases in Texas,” while urging medical facilities to postpone elective procedures to clear space for coronavirus patients.
The spike in infections has been attributed to the more contagious Delta variant, which was first observed in India but has since swept the US and a number of other countries. While daily cases and deaths in Texas have yet to reach their peak seen last January, hospitalizations in the state now mirror the worst days of its outbreak.
To date, Texas has administered nearly 29 million doses of coronavirus vaccines, fully immunizing more than 13 million people, or about 47% of the state’s population.
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