The Capitol riot may have put legislators at risk for coronavirus infection

Congress attending physician warned House members on Sunday said they may have been exposed to the coronavirus last week after evacuating the House chamber when pro-Trump rebels invaded the U.S. Capitol.

In an email, the attending physician, Dr. Brian Monahan, wrote that, after evacuating to “a large committee hearing space”, members “may have been exposed to another occupant with coronavirus infection”.

“Please continue with your usual daily measures to reduce the risk of coronavirus,” Monahan continues to say in the email, and “get a coronavirus test RT-PCR next week as a precaution.”

Monahan’s warning is especially clear in the context of a video taken last week by Punchbowl News – a new news medium started in early 2021 by a handful of former Politico alumni – showing evacuated members of the House without a mask and nearby each other.

In the video, a lawmaker – Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, a Delaware Democrat – can be seen offering masks to other members, but many refuse the offer.

“While I was disappointed with my colleagues who refused to wear a mask, I was encouraged by those who did,” Rochester said in a tweet on Friday after the video went public. “My goal, in the midst of what I feared to be a super-spreading event, was to make the room at least a little bit safer.”

It is not clear whether the room in the video is the same as the Monahan email warns that it was the site of a possible exposure to the coronavirus, but the footage, combined with the email, raises the alarming possibility of a Covid outbreak. -19 on the Capitol.

Since Wednesday, at least one member of the House – Republican Rep. Jake LaTurner of Kansas – has announced that he tested positive for Covid-19, although again it is unclear whether LaTurner is the person with coronavirus infection mentioned in Monahan’s email. .

LaTurner, a full member of Congress, confirmed in a tweet he tested positive on Wednesday night – the same day the Capitol was attacked.

“Congressman LaTurner is following the advice of the Chamber physician and the CDC guidelines”, a tweet from your official account said, “And therefore, it does not plan to return to the plenary session of the Chamber to vote until it is authorized to do so.”

There are also obvious concerns about the coronavirus about the crowd of masked pro-Trump insurgents who invaded the Capitol on Wednesday. Many of these rebels were in close contact with members of the Capitol Police while legislators evacuated.

“You cannot keep your distance if you are trying to get out of a very intense and dangerous situation,” a respiratory virus transmission specialist, Seema Lakdawala, told the New York Times last week. “You are weighing the risk of your life against the risk of getting a virus at that time.”

It is also worrying that if Wednesday’s events result in additional cases of Covid-19 – or even turn into an overcrowded event, although there is currently no evidence that it has occurred – Congress is a particularly vulnerable population.

In particular, age is a significant risk factor for severe cases of Covid-19. According to the Mayo Clinic, about 80% of deaths from the virus in the United States were people aged 65 and over – and the median age of Democratic leadership in the House at the 116th Congress (the 117th Congress started last Sunday) was 71. The average age of all Democratic caucus in the previous Congress was 58, and for the Republican conference, 57.

One fact that could help limit any potential spread, however, is that many members of Congress – including senior members of each party in the House and Senate – have already received the first of two Covid-19 vaccines, with the hope of decrease the risk of an outbreak. As Kelsey Piper of Vox explained, “taking just one dose still reduces a person’s chances of catching Covid-19 by 80 to 90 percent, at least initially.”

Congress was spared the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic

Despite the risk factors on Capitol Hill, Congress has so far been spared the worst of the coronavirus pandemic. In mid-December, 49 members in both chambers tested positive for Covid-19, although that number has grown since then and there have been no deaths among active members.

However, deputy-elect Luke Letlow, 41, died of a coronavirus in late December, just days before he was named a member of the 117th Congress.

Even elderly members of Congress, such as Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, 87, who tested positive in November, experienced good health, although Alaska Representative Don Young, also 87, said on Twitter after surviving the virus that “frankly, I haven’t felt that way in a long time”.

This is in sharp contrast to the situation the country is currently facing: overshadowed by Wednesday’s Capitol insurrection, the United States reported on Thursday the highest death toll in a pandemic day, with 4,112 deaths.

On Friday, the U.S. also registered 300,000 new cases in a single day for the first time, reporting 300,594 cases. On average, the country reported 253,958 new cases per day for the past seven days, according to the New York Times.

The broader launch of vaccines in the United States is also well behind schedule, with just 5.9 million people vaccinated on Thursday, well below the 20 million that the Trump administration said would be vaccinated by the end of December.

It is possible that the tide will change in the near future: Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease specialist, said last week that, although the initial launch of the vaccine has stumbled, “I believe we will gain momentum as we move from the holiday season in the first weeks of January. “

And President-elect Joe Biden, who will take office in 10 days, pledged a large-scale vaccination effort to obtain “at least 100 million vaccines from Covid in the arms of the American people” in his first 100 days in office.

To that end, Biden said he will make a somewhat controversial shift in the U.S. distribution strategy, releasing all available doses at once. Both vaccines currently authorized for widespread use in the United States require two doses, and the Trump administration has chosen to withhold doses to ensure that those receiving the first dose are guaranteed a second available when they are scheduled to receive it.

But even if the US vaccination effort improves in the coming weeks, right now the pandemic is spreading across the United States unchecked – and Wednesday’s events could have left Congress more vulnerable than ever to the virus.