Dr. Ben Carson has become the latest major presidential cabinet member or insider to have contracted the coronavirus, the media reports on Monday.
Carson, 69, tested positive on Monday morning, Nov. 9, 2020, during a checkup at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, about 10 miles from the White House. Carson reportedly had experienced COVID-19 symptoms over the weekend.
“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,” Coalter Baker, Carson’s chief of staff, said in a statement obtained by ABC News.
Carson had attended a party on Election Day with the likes of White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who also tested positive last week. To no one’s surprise, neither wore a mask.
Carson is the brilliant neurosurgeon who became the youngest director of pediatric neurosurgery in the United States when he headed the department at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center at age 33. When he retired, Carson was a professor of neurosurgery, oncology, plastic surgery, and pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
Carson would, of course, go on to become a staunch advocate of conservative ideology and a close friend of POTUS. A former presidential candidate, Carson was appointed by POTUS as the secretary of Housing and Urban Development in 2017.
