The Morning Call (Sunday)

Capitol riot could be a viral hotbed

Conditions were ripe for a possible spike in infections

- By Apoorva Mandavilli

The mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday did not just threaten the heart of American democracy. To scientists who watched in dismay as the scenes unfolded on television, the throngs of unmasked intruders who wandered through hallways and into private offices may also have transforme­d the riot into a supersprea­der event.

The coronaviru­s thrives indoors, particular­ly in crowded spaces, lingering in the air in tiny particles called aerosols. If even a few people were infected — likely, given the current rates of spread and the crowd size — then the virus would have had the ideal opportunit­y to find new victims, experts said.

“It has all the elements of what we warn people about ,” said Anne Rimoin, a public health researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles. “People yelling and screaming, chanting, exerting themselves — all of those things provide opportunit­y for the virus to spread, and this virus takes those opportunit­ies.”

President Donald Trump has down played the pandemic almost since its beginning, and many of his supporters who entered the Capitol on Wednesday did not appear to be wearing masks or making any effort at social distancing. Under similar conditions, gatherings held in such close quarters have led to fast-spreading clusters of infection.

But transmissi­on of the virus has always been difficult to track. There is little effective contact tracing in the United States, and many in the crowd at the Capitol arrived from communitie­s far from Washington.

The Black Lives Matter protests in the summer raised similar concerns. But most were held outdoors, and greater numbers of participan­ts seemed to be masked. Research afterward suggested these were not super spreading events.

Attendees of the rally preceding the rush to the Capitol on Wednesday also stood outdoors close together for hours, but “I’m

less worried about what was happening outdoors,” Rimoin said. “The risk increases exponentia­lly indoors.”

Hundreds of rioters shouting in crowded rooms and hallways for extended periods of time can infect dozens of people at once, she and other experts said.

Three distinct groups — Capitol Police, rioters and members of Congress —“were spending time indoors, without social distancing, for long periods of time,” said Dr. Joshua Barocas, an infectious diseases physician at Boston University. The melee likely was a supersprea­der event, he added, “especially given the backdrop of the highly transmissi­ble variants that are circulatin­g.”

Barocas was referring to a highly contagious new variant of the coronaviru­s, first identified in Britain. Cases have been reported in several U.S. states, and the variant may well have spread everywhere in the country, making events like the Capitol riot even more risky, he said.

The idea that members of Congress may have been exposed, amid an already difficult transfer of power, particular­ly disturbed some scientists. “I am worried not only that it could it could lead to super spreading, but also supers preading to people who are elected officials,” said Dr. Tom Ingelsby, director of the Center for Health Security at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.

And infected members of Congress and law enforcemen­t could have spread the virus to one another as they sheltered fromthe violence, he noted. Rep. Jake LaTurner, R-Kan., announced on Twitter early Thursday that he had tested positive for the virus. LaTurner was cloistered in the chamber with other members of Congress for much of the day.

At least a dozen of the 400 or so lawmakers and staff who were huddling in one committee room refused to wear masks even after being offered one, or wore them improperly below their chins, said Rep. Susan Wild, D-Pa.

They gathered in a committee room that quickly became crowded, making social distancing impossible, she said. Some of the lawmakers were unmasked, and several were shouting. “Tensions were high, and people were yelling at each other,” Wild said.

“I just started getting really kind of angry, thinking about the holidays just passed, and how so many people did not spend time with their immediate families for fear of spreading,” sheadded, referring to her unmasked colleagues.

The risk for members of Congress will depend greatly on ventilatio­n in the room where they sheltered, said Joseph Allen, an expert on buildings quality at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston.

“If there is a well-designed secure facility, then it would have great ventilatio­n and filtration,” Allen said. “If it’s a place where they were just hunkered down wherever they could go that was safe, and it was not a place that was designed like that, then we don’t really know.”

Scientists have documented infectious aerosols suspended in air nearly 20feet from an infected person. And a recent study from South Korea found that two people had become infected after spending just five minutes in a restaurant, 15 feet away from an infected patron.

 ?? MCNAMEE/GETTY WIN ?? The storming of the U.S. Capitol by protesters Wednesday has some scientists calling it a likely supersprea­der event given that the coronaviru­s thrives well indoors and most notably in crowded spaces. Many of the protesters were seen without masks and not following social distancing.
MCNAMEE/GETTY WIN The storming of the U.S. Capitol by protesters Wednesday has some scientists calling it a likely supersprea­der event given that the coronaviru­s thrives well indoors and most notably in crowded spaces. Many of the protesters were seen without masks and not following social distancing.

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