January 6, 2021 was America’s Day of Broken Glass. When the Capitol was breached by rioters, members of the Senate and Congress had to shelter in place in a secure location. That secure location was a committee hearing space. Several of those lawmakers have tested positive or COVID-19 possibly exposing others in the room to the virus.
The Capitol’s attending physician, Brian Monahan, notified all lawmakers Sunday January 10, 2021 of the virus exposure and urged them to be tested. Lawmakers were huddled together in the room for several hours while the Capitol was under siege.
Face coverings are required in House committee hearings and mask-wearing is a requirement on the House floor. Some lawmakers and staff were furious after video surfaced of Republican lawmakers not wearing their masks in the safe room during lockdown.
The clip showed Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.) trying to pass out masks to lawmakers without face coverings. Newly elected QAnon conspiracy theorist Marjorie Taylor Green (R-Ga.) was one of the offenders. She grinned as the rioters took control of the Capitol outside the conference room. Now that she is a member of the government, she should realize that she is a satanic pedophile elite who is responsible for all the evil in the world. Markwayne Mullin (R-Ok.) beside her, joked that he didn’t want to get into politics, but he would not accept a mask being offered to him. He wore a varsity football jacket, possibly thinking he could blend in to the crowd of rioting yahoos should the safe room be overrun. Andy Briggs of (R-Az.), Scott Perry (R-Pa.), Michael Cloud (R-Tx.) and, Doug LaMalfa of California all refused masks.
Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.) announced Monday January 11, 2021 that she has tested positive for COVID-19. She believes she was exposed to the virus while sheltering in place with several of her House colleagues, some of whom she said refused to wear masks. A statement from Watson Coleman’s office indicates she was was in that specific safe room. Coleman is isolating and awaiting the results of PCR testing; she previously received the first dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID19 vaccine, which was made available to members of Congress, the Supreme Court, and Executive Branch agencies for the purposes of continuity of government operations. She said, “I received a positive test result for COVID-19, and am home resting at this time. While I am experiencing mild, cold-like symptoms, I remain in good spirits and will continue to work on behalf of my constituents.” Pramila Jayapal, (D-Wash.), said she has also tested positive and criticized Republican members of Congress who declined to wear a mask when it was offered to them.
Also testing positive were, Jake LaTurner of (R-La.) and Charles Fleischmann (R-Tenn.). A spokesmen for both lawmakers told the Post they were not in the lockdown room. The riot was a super-spreader event, said Scott Gottlieb, former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. The crowd “wasn’t adhering to what we know are good practices in terms of mask-wearing and other things,” he said on Sunday’s Face the Nation. “I think they deliberately eschewed those things. So, yeah, we’re going to see chains of transmission come out of that kind of a gathering, for sure.”