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Dan Patrick, the current lieutenant governor of Texas, is currently recovering after being diagnosed with a breakthrough case of COVID-19.
According to his senior campaign adviser Allen Blakemore, Patrick tested positive for the virus on December 27. He promptly entered quarantine and has tested negative twice since Saturday. Unlike Governor Greg Abbott, who tested positive for the virus last year with no symptoms, Patrick developed mild symptoms although specifics were not immediately given.
"His symptoms were mild, and no one else in the household was infected," Blakemore said in a press statement. "He continues working from home and will return to a public schedule by the end of the week."
The adviser also said that Patrick has received two shots of a COVID-19 vaccine as well as a booster shot.
Patrick has previously been under fire for controversial comments he has made during the pandemic. During the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, he condemned shutting down the country as an attempt to help curb the spread of the coronavirus, saying that he'd rather "take a chance on…survival" than see the country shut down.
"I just think there are lots of grandparents out there in this country like me," he said. "And I want to, you know, live smart and see through this, but I don't want to see the whole country to be sacrificed."
In August 2021, he talked to Laura Ingraham during her Fox News show, where he claimed that unvaccinated Black Americans were a primary reason for COVID-19 surges around the country. This claim cannot be scientifically backed up and was accused of being racist in a state where nearly 13 percent of residents are Black.
"It's up to the Democrats, just as it's up to the Republicans, to try to get as many people vaccinated, but we respect the fact that if people don't want the vaccination, we're not gonna force it on them," Patrick said during the 2021 interview. "That's their individual right. But in terms of criticizing the Republicans for this, we're encouraging people to take it, but they're doing nothing for the African American community that has a significant high number of unvaccinated people, so they need to address that."
Last week, Abbott asked the Biden administration for more testing sites and additional monoclonal antibody treatments as omicron surges.
According to John Hopkins University, the seven-day rolling average of daily new cases in Texas has risen over the past two weeks from more than 5,800 new cases per day on December 18 to more than 15,900 on January 1.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
