HUD Secretary Ben Carson joins list of Trump administration officials who have tested positive for COVID-19

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson tested positive for COVID-19, his office announced Monday. 

"Secretary Carson has tested positive for the coronavirus. He is in good spirits and feels fortunate to have access to effective therapeutics which aid and markedly speed his recovery," Carson's deputy chief of staff Coalter Baker said in a statement. 

Carson joins a growing list of Trump administration officials, including President Donald Trump, who have contracted the highly contagious virus. An initial White House outbreak in early October infected the president, first lady Melania Trump, his son Baron Trump, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and other senior officials. More recently, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and a Trump campaign official tested positive. 

Both Carson and Meadows attended an election night party at the White House. 

Carson later told the Washington Post he was now "feeling terrific" after experiencing symptoms Sunday of a "fever of 101. Chills. Muscle cramps. Respiratory issues and fatigue." 

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He was unsure how he contracted the virus, telling the newspaper he got it “probably somewhere, out there in the universe.​" 

Carson added, "it's gone now, so I'm happy" and that "theoretically" he might now be immune to COVID-19, though "I don’t think that’s fully been worked out yet.” 

Carson, 69, is a renowned brain surgeon who spent nearly three decades as the director of pediatric neurosurgery at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. He survived a diagnosis of an aggressive form of prostate cancer in 2002. 

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Public health officials have long expressed concern about the administration's lack of adherence to guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus.

Even Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he stopped visiting the White House in August because "their approach to how to handle" the pandemic "was different from mine and what I insisted that we do in the Senate, which is to wear a mask and practice social distancing." 

In addition to avoiding and mocking the use of masks, Trump has hosted crowded events at the White House amid the pandemic, including the final night of the Republican National Convention and a White House Rose Garden ceremony for the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett. 

The Sept. 26 event for Barrett was attended by more than 200 people and nearly a dozen later tested positive for the virus. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, called it a "superspreader event" and drew the ire of the White House after telling CBS News' "60 Minutes" he was not surprised the president and those around him had been infected. 

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Despite Trump's claims during the campaign that the U.S. had "rounded the corner" on the coronavirus pandemic and that "it's going away," record numbers of Americans are being infected every day and the U.S. death toll, which stands at more than 237,000, is once again growing by an average of more than 1,000 every day. 

The pharmaceutical company Pfizer provided hope Monday the end of the pandemic could be within sight, releasing the results of a study that showed the vaccine it had developed was 90% effective in preventing infections from the coronavirus. 

President-elect Joe Biden has been highly critical of Trump's handling of the pandemic and has promised an approach that is guided more by the input of doctors and scientists. Biden's transition team on Monday named the experts who will advise him on how to contain the COVID-19 outbreak. 

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