Second US congresswoman tests positive for COVID-19 after Capitol unrest
- by Virginia Carter
- in World Media
- — Jan 13, 2021
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., announced she has tested positive for the coronavirus. "Our House colleagues who refused to wear masks last week as members were forced to shelter in the Capitol put all of us at risk and should be ashamed of themselves", he tweeted.
She stated, however, that she was awaiting the results of a PCR test and said she previously received the first dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID19 vaccine, which has been made available to members of Congress and other government officials.
Three members of the House of Representatives have announced they've tested positive for the coronavirus since sheltering in place during the attack on the U.S. Capitol last Wednesday. Jake LaTurner (Kan.) and Chuck Fleischmann (Tenn.), have also tested positive for COVID-19 since the attack, but both have said they were not in the same room as the others. Jayapal went further to call for fines for these congresspeople who flout mask rules, as the Associated Press reports.
Crowded conditions during the prolonged security lockdown recently prompted Dr. Brian Monahan, the attending physician to Congress, to urge members and staff to get coronavirus tests, citing a high chance of transmission.
"This is not a joke", she said. "Our lives and our livelihoods are at risk, and anyone who refuses to wear a mask should be fully held accountable for endangering our lives due to their selfish idiocy".
According to Jayapal, "several Republicans not only cruelly refused to wear a mask but mocked colleagues and staff who offered them one".
The Republicans refuse her offer.
CNN identified the Republicans in the safe room who refused masks as Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Oklahoma Rep. Markwayne Mullin, Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs, Pennsylvania Rep. Scott Perry, Texas Rep. Michael Cloud and California Rep. Doug LaMalfa.
Democratic Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester of DE was shown in a Twitter video offering surgical masks to a group of GOP lawmakers, who all refused. "Furious that more of my colleagues by the day are testing positive".
Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, agreed. "These individuals all are going in cars and trains and planes going home all across the country right now". Outside, hordes of unmasked MAGA extremists, dubbed "covidiots" for their reckless disregard for basic decency and social distancing measures, roamed the hallways of Congress, leading public health experts to warn that the Trump rally (where the President boasted of "big crowds") and the subsequent mob attack could serve as a "superspreader event". "So I do think this is an event that will probably lead to a significant spreading event". So we all have to make sure it is not a political issue.
