Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner says he has COVID-19, plans to isolate

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner announced Friday he has COVID 19, putting him among a rising number of infections as the omicron strain of the virus begins to sweep the country. “I was not feeling well overnight and thought I was suffering from allergies or a sinus infection, so I decided to get tested before starting my daily schedule,” Turner said in a statement released by his office. The diagnosis comes as cases are again rising in the region. Average daily cases in the Texas Medical Center reached an eight-week high, officials confirmed earlier this week, tripling the daily caseload of the previous week. That has led to a renewed focus on vaccine preparedness before the Christmas travel period, including a free citywide vaccine clinic in downtown Houston on Friday, where Turner was supposed to be among the featured guests. Instead, as the chance Turner might test positive loomed, Houston’s chief medical officer, Dr. David Persse, hurried to replace him. Turner said he received his confirmation of the infection Friday afternoon. The specific strain of the virus infecting the mayor was not released. As with other recent cases among people less at risk, Turner reported his symptoms were mild. “I will spend the next several days isolating myself at home and getting some rest,” he said. Turner is vaccinated, received a booster in late October or early November and has spoken repeatedly about the value of the vaccines and the need for Houston residents to get vaccinated. “Mayor Turner has been a steadfast partner in our work to address COVID-19 and to educate our community about the urgency of getting vaccinated,” Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said in a statement. “I’m happy to hear his symptoms are mild and am looking forward to seeing him back out and about soon.” Turner will follow Centers for Disease Control and Prevention protocols for isolating after a positive test, city officials said. CDC recommends anyone who tests positive — even those who are vaccinated — should isolate for 10 days, using the first full day of symptoms as a starting point. For Turner, that means if his mild symptoms do not worsen or go away entirely, Dec. 27. “The mayor is a living example of the way to manage this,” Persse said. It is an example many in the community still need, officials said, as they redoubled their outreach efforts. On Friday, families filed into the George R. Brown Convention Center for a free, kid-friendly vaccine clinic hosted by the city and Texas Children’s Hospital. Seven-year-old Emilia Mayfield pulled up her sleeve and picked out a pink Band-Aid. She was nervous about getting a shot, she said, but it all happened so fast. A nurse told the girl to relax her arm like a spaghetti noodle, asked her a bunch of questions about school and administered one dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. The girl’s mother cheered from across the table as her sister stepped up to go next. “Now you have all those superpowers,” Joy Mayfield told her daughter. Turner will continue to work from home and communicate with staff, spokeswoman Mary Benton said, but without any in-person contact. The mayor has a private physician under his health insurance plan. City employees in frequent contact with the mayor, such as his security detail, executive office staff and a handful of others, are tested with Turner every two weeks. All of those employees were making plans to be tested Friday, Benton said. Persse said a health department staff member will speak with Turner about who he has been in contact with and where he has been. The health department will contact those individuals and tell them they had contact with an unidentified person who tested positive, ask them how they are feeling and provide health guidelines. Persse said he did not know how many people Turner had been in contact with in the past several days. “It's probably going to be a relatively large number,” he said. Between Monday and Wednesday, Turner’s public schedule included five major events, including sessions with Houston City Council, an ice skating party at Discovery Green, and an event with community leaders to rename a plaza for Jose Campos Torres. Benton said others — including City Council members — will decide on their own whether to get tested or curtail their public schedules. As they often do on city issues, opinions differed among council members. District I Councilman Robert Gallegos’ office said he planned to be tested. District G Councilman Greg Travis, who sometimes spars with the mayor, said he did not plan on being tested, noting the mayor “hasn’t given me a hug in weeks.” CDC guidance is for people who are vaccinated to only quarantine if they have symptoms, but test five to seven days after any exposure within 6 feet for 15 minutes over a 24-hour period. Increasing numbers of Houstonians are likely to heed the advice, with a steady rise in COVID cases each day, said Dr. James Versalovic, co-chair of the Texas Children’s Hospital COVID-19 Command and pathologist-in-chief. Much of the uptick is due to omicron, first identified around Thanksgiving as a variant of concern, though the delta variant still remains in the region. Both variants are highly transmissible and spreading rapidly, he said. “The reality is we are in a race between vaccines and the virus,” Versalovic said. “And the variants keep getting faster and faster.” In the Houston region, just 1 in 10 children between the ages of 5 and 11 have received the vaccine, said Jermaine Monroe, co-chair of the Texas Children’s Hospital COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force. Meanwhile, more than half of children between age 12 and 15 in the region have gotten at least one dose of the vaccine, Monroe said. “We’re here to provide hope in the form of these precious vaccines,” he said. U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee said the nation is in the midst of a new surge with hospitalizations and infections creeping up. “We really want our community, even in the season of giving, to take it seriously,” she said. Joy Mayfield took her daughters, 7-year-old Emilia and 8-year-old Evelyn, to get their first shot of the vaccine at Friday’s event. The whole family was infected with COVID-19 in early November, Mayfield said, even though she and her husband were fully vaccinated and followed health protocols. The girls had milder symptoms. “We decided then that we were going to get them vaccinated so that we could prevent any serious illness for them in the future,” she said. “I think we realized that this isn’t going away, so we need to arm ourselves with as much protection as we can.” dug.begley@chron.com anna.bauman@chron.com

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner says he has COVID-19, plans to isolate

The sign in service is not functioning right now.

Please try again in a few minutes

Profile Settings

Activate Digital Access

Subscription & Billing

Subscriber Benefits

GET A HEAD START ON 2022
6 MONTHS FOR 99¢

Experience these benefits
with our limited-time sale.

Keep reading with
unlimited digital access.