3rd House Dem: I got bug from maskless pols
A third House Democrat has tested positive for COVID-19 after being forced into a crowded lockdown room with other legislators, some of them not wearing masks, during Wednesday’s Capitol siege.
Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.) confirmed in a scathing statement Tuesday that he contracted coronavirus and suspected it came from the “selfishness” of his anti-mask colleagues.
On Monday, Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.) said they tested positive after fleeing to the same room.
“Last Wednesday, after narrowly escaping a violent mob incited by the president of the United States to attack the Capitol and its occupants, I was forced to spend several hours in a secure but confined location with dozens of other members of Congress,” Schneider (top inset) said in his statement.
“Several Republican lawmakers in the room adamantly refused to wear a mask, as demonstrated in video from Punchbowl News, even when politely asked by their colleagues,” he said.
“Today, I am now in strict isolation, worried that I have risked my wife’s health and angry at the selfishness and arrogance of the anti-maskers who put their own contempt and disregard for decency ahead of the health and safety of their colleagues and our staff,” he said.
Jayapal (middle inset) previously announced her positive COVID test on social media, saying her Republican colleagues not only “cruelly refused to wear a mask but recklessly mocked colleagues and staff who offered them one.”
On Tuesday, she ssaid any member not wearing a mask should face consequences.
“Republicans refused to wear masks and mocked us for doing so — creating a superspreader event on ttop of a deadly attack. Now I’m among those who have COVID after sheltering with them. They put lives aat risk. Fine members who refuse to wear a mask and remove tthem from the floor,” she tweeted.
Watson Coleman, a 75-year-old cancer survivor, was the first to announce her infection Monday.
“Following the events of Wednesday, including sheltering with several colleagues who refused to wear masks, I decided to take a Covid test. I have tested positive,” she tweeted.
“I implore anyone who sheltered at the Capitol during the attack to get tested,” Watson Coleman (bottom inset) said in a followup Tuesday tweet.
Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.) was filmed in the lockdown room offering masks to GOP colleagues who refused to take them, including Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), Markwayne Mullin, (R-Okla.), Michael Cloud (R-Texas), Scott Perry (RPa.) and Doug LaMalfa (R-Calif.).