By Robert T. Garrett
AUSTIN — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who has resisted mask mandates, has tested positive for COVID-19, his office announced Tuesday.
“I test myself every day and today is the first day that I tested positive,” Abbott said from the balcony of the governor’s mansion in Austin, in a video shot nearly three hours after the announcement.
“The good news is that my wife continues to test negative,” Abbott said, referring to Texas first lady Cecilia Abbott.
“Also, [I] want you to know that I have received the COVID-19 vaccine, and that may be one reason why I’m really not feeling any symptoms right now,” Abbott said in the video, his first on-camera appearance since testing positive. He tweeted the minute-long video at 6:30 p.m.
“I have no fever, no aches and pains, no other types of symptoms,” the Republican governor said.
Abbott, 63, who has been wheelchair-bound since a tree fell on him while he was a young law school graduate studying for the bar, has waged political war on two fronts in recent weeks.
He’s called two special legislative sessions and excoriated Texas House Democrats who fled the state to block passage of an “election integrity” bill that he insists is needed to deter voter fraud. More recently, Abbott has blasted school superintendents and local elected officials for defying his July 29 ban on local mask requirements. He has said “personal responsibility,” not edicts, will get Texans through the pandemic.
“As I work my way through this,” he said of his infection, “I will stay engaged every single day on everything happening in the Texas Capitol including working with the members of the Legislature.”
In the official announcement that he has contracted COVID-19, Abbott communications director Mark Miner said Abbott “is in constant communication with his staff, agency heads and government officials to ensure that state government continues to operate smoothly and efficiently. The governor will isolate in the governor’s mansion and continue to test daily.”
Abbott was fully vaccinated against COVID-19 late last year and early this year, using the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine.
Abbott is receiving Regeneron’s monoclonal antibody treatment, Miner said.
Abbott is “in good health, and currently experiencing no symptoms,” Miner said. “Everyone that the governor has been in close contact with today has been notified.”
NBC News, citing two unnamed sources, said Abbott has told people he received a third booster dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Asked if the governor received a booster, Abbott press secretary Renae Eze replied, “I am not aware.”
In recent weeks, Abbott has received national attention for preempting local mask requirements in Texas, where the coronavirus’s delta variant has been surging. Abbott and state lawmakers also have banned vaccine passports designed to give vaccine-hesitant people further incentive to get the shots.
Monday event
On Monday night Abbott, who is seeking a third term next year, appeared at an event sponsored by the Republican Club at Heritage Ranch in Collin County. On his personal and campaign Twitter accounts, Abbott was pictured not wearing a mask and surrounded by a large audience of people not wearing masks.
Monday’s was one of several recent public events at which neither the governor nor audience members wore face coverings.
On Tuesday, Abbott posed with blues rock guitarist Jimmie Vaughan, Vaughan’s family and Cedar Park Mayor Corbin Van Arsdale. Abbott tweeted that Vaughan, brother of the late Stevie Ray Vaughan, was “a legendary Texas musician in his own right.”
A spokesman for Jimmie Vaughan, reached later Tuesday, said in an email that “despite the news today of Governor Abbott’s positive Covid diagnosis, Jimmie and family have tested negative and are doing fine. … We wish the governor a speedy recovery.”
Late Tuesday, when asked if the governor might have contracted the virus at such maskless events, Eze referred a reporter to Miner’s statement. Speaking of Abbott, she added, “He tested negative yesterday.”
Regeneron
Asked why Abbott would take the monoclonal antibody treatment made by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals if he has no symptoms, Eze said, “It is recommended that you begin Regeneron within 10 days of testing positive and before you start experiencing symptoms.”
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Regeneron and Eli Lilly have developed synthetic antibodies that can be infused into patients shortly after they develop COVID-19 symptoms to help them mount a faster immune response. Eli Lilly’s drug is derived from antibodies isolated from one of the first U.S. patients to recover from COVID-19. Regeneron’s infusion contains a cocktail of two antibodies to help prevent the virus from becoming drug-resistant.
Such monoclonal antibodies are already used to fight cancer and autoimmune diseases, and Abbott has promoted their use. Since last summer, the state has created infusion centers at COVID-19 hotspots, as a way of keeping people with mild and moderate symptoms out of already slammed local hospitals.
Last Thursday, Miner dismissed as false persistent rumors the governor had tested positive.
On July 21, four days after she attended a border security event in Del Rio with Abbott and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody tweeted that she’d tested positive for COVID-19.
On July 22, Abbott had himself tested and the result was negative, said Eze, his spokeswoman.
“Out of an abundance of caution, he will continue to test for the next three days,” Eze said at the time. “Vaccines are the most effective defense against contracting COVID and becoming seriously ill, and we continue to urge all eligible Texans to get the vaccine. The COVID vaccine will always remain voluntary and never forced in Texas.”
Reaction
Some Democrats seized on the news to assail Abbott for impeding efforts to protect schoolchildren who are too young for vaccines with mask requirements on school grounds. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas, was among those needling the governor.
“What’s appropriate: Thoughts and prayers???” she tweeted. “OR Hopefully there’s an ICU bed if you need one since you’ve not allowed locals to try to control this thing and they are running outta beds OR Can we finally now allow mask mandates???”
Republicans such as Southlake GOP Rep. Giovanni Capriglione and Travis County GOP Chairman Matt Mackowiak protested such remarks as out of bounds.
“Delete your account,” Mackowiak told Crockett.
Tweeted Capriglione: “If you are tweeting enjoyment over another’s illness — maybe you are the one that is sick.”
House Transportation Committee Chairman Terry Canales, D-Edinburg, retorted to Capriglione, “I didnt hear you chastizing all your colleagues when they were laughing and poking fun at Ds in DC with covid.”
Canales was referring to how, when six of the more than 55 runaway House Democrats tested positive in Washington, D.C., after flying maskless to the nation’s capital on a private plane, many Republicans reacted with derision.
Not all Democrats took the free shot on goal, though. Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins, who has battled Abbott over masks and business-closure orders for nearly 18 months, offered well-wishes. “I hope the governor gets well quickly,” Jenkins said in a text message. “Our enemy is the virus. Its enemy is all of us.”
Austin correspondent Allie Morris and political reporter Gromer Jeffers Jr. contributed to this report.
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