Herman Cain Hospitalized After Testing Positive for Coronavirus

Former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain has been hospitalized after testing positive for COVID-19, according to a statement on his Twitter account.

Cain, an official surrogate for President Trump’s re-election campaign, has been receiving treatment at an Atlanta-area hospital since Wednesday, the statement says.

“Mr. Cain did not require a respirator, and he is awake and alert,” reads the statement. “There is no way of knowing for sure how or where Mr. Cain contracted the coronavirus, but we do know he is a fighter who has beaten Stage 4 cancer.”

It’s not yet possible to determine exactly where Cain contracted the virus. The former presidential candidate was present at Trump’s rally in Tulsa on June 20, according to a photo he posted of himself in a group at the event, in which he was not wearing a mask. Public health experts had warned against attending the rally, expressing fear that it would become a hotspot for the coronavirus. Cain was informed that he tested positive for the coronavirus on June 29.

Dan Calabrese, editor of HermanCain.com, wrote in a July 2 post on the website that they “honestly have no idea where he contracted it.”

“I realize people will speculate about the Tulsa rally, but Herman did a lot of traveling the past week, including to Arizona where cases are spiking,” he wrote. “I don’t think there’s any way to trace this to the one specific contact that caused him to be infected. We’ll never know.”

Write to Mahita Gajanan at mahita.gajanan@time.com.