Texas Gov. Greg Abbott tests positive for COVID-19

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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced he tested positive for COVID-19 on Tuesday despite being fully vaccinated.

"I test myself every day and today is the first day that I tested positive," Gov. Abbott said in a video Tuesday evening. "I want you to know that as I work my way through this, I will stay engaged every single day on everything happening at the Texas Capitol, including working with the members of the legislature as well as the members across the entire state to keep Texas the best state in the United States." 

Gov. Abbott received his first dose of the Pfizer-BioNtech COVID-19 vaccine in December of last year, which he credited for his mild case so far. 

"I have received the COVID-19 vaccine, and that may be one reason why I’m really not feeling any symptoms right now. I have no fever, no aches and pains, no other types of symptoms," Abbott said Tuesday. 

DOZENS OF KIDS HOSPITALIZED WITH COVID-19 AND RSV, TEXAS PEDIATRICIAN SAYS

He will now isolate in the Governor's Mansion and receive Regeneron's monoclonal antibody treatment while continuing to test daily, his office said. 

"Governor Abbott is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, in good health, and currently experiencing no symptoms," the governor's communications director, Mark Miner, said. "Everyone that the governor has been in close contact with today has been notified. Texas First Lady Cecilia Abbott tested negative."

Breakthrough infections – when a fully vaccinated person tests positive for COVID-19 – are possible but extremely rare. 

The rate of breakthrough cases among the fully vaccinated is well below 1% in all 25 states that report data on breakthrough events, ranging from as low as .01% in Connecticut to 0.29% in Alaska, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis. 

The rate of deaths from COVID-19 among fully vaccinated people is even lower as it is effectively zero in every state except Arkansas and Michigan, where the rate was 0.01%.

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Gov. Abbott's positive test result comes amid a spate of public events and meetings. He posted a picture of himself maskless on Twitter Monday night while speaking to a Republican group at a country club near Dallas. Most of the event's attendees also didn't appear to be wearing masks. 

Two hours before the positive test was announced, he posted pictures of a meeting with musician Jimmie Vaughan, the brother of Stevie Ray Vaughan. 

Abbott has clashed with local governments in Texas over COVID-19 mitigation measures, issuing an executive order last month banning cities and schools from implementing their own mandates. 

Some school districts around the state, including in Dallas and San Antonio, defied the governor by mandating masks in schools recently, but the Texas Supreme Court blocked those mandates on Sunday. 

COVID-19 cases have soared in Texas recently as the delta variant spreads throughout the nation. 

The 7-day average for new cases in Texas reached a low point on June 15 of 1,065, but was up to 12,498 on Monday, the highest it has been since early February, according to Johns Hopkins University data. 

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Meanwhile, hospitalizations in Texas have increased 301% over the last month as the state reported nearly 12,000 COVID-19 patients hospitalized on Monday, which is the most since Jan. 28. 

Nearly 55% of Texans have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, while 45.5% have been fully vaccinated, according to the CDC. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.