Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick tested positive last week for COVID-19 but didn’t tell Texas right away

By James Barragán

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is quarantining after testing positive for COVID-19 last week, his campaign said Monday.

In a short news release, Patrick senior adviser Allen Blakemore said the lieutenant governor experienced mild symptoms and tested positive for the virus last week but has subsequently tested negative and is completing his quarantine period.

“His symptoms were mild and no one else in the household was infected,” Blakemore said. “He continues working from home and will return to a public schedule by the end of the week.”

The release did not say what day Patrick received the positive test or why it was not disclosed earlier.

When Gov. Greg Abbott tested positive for COVID-19 in August, his office disclosed that information the same day. Abbott isolated at the Governor’s Mansion and received Regeneron’s monoclonal antibody treatment. His office notified everyone he’d been in close contact with. Abbott had attended a “standing room only” campaign event in Collin County the night before his positive test.

Four days after later, Abbott tested negative and credited his vaccination for keeping the infection “brief and mild.”

Patrick tweeted in November that he was vaccinated and encouraged “others to do their own research.” Like Abbott, his public statements have been more focused on fighting mandates than promoting immunization.

Patrick’s infection came as the state was running out sotrovimab, the only monoclonal antibody treatment known to be effective against the omicron variant, and Abbott called on federal authorities to send more doses of the treatment to the state and open up new COVID-19 testing sites.

Texas is in the midst of an omicron surge that began last month. As of Wednesday, the state’s positivity rate was 26.5%. During the height of the pandemic, state officials had said a positivity rate of more than 10% was cause for concern.

This story originally published by the Texas Tribune.