The Capitol physician released new guidance Friday detailing how lawmakers can get tests for COVID-19.
Six months after the outbreak began, the Office of the Attending Physician explained tests are available for members “who have symptoms suggestive of coronavirus or who are concerned they may have been exposed to a known positive COVID-19 patient.” Results are available on the same day.
Tests will also be offered for staff members who come into contact with a person known to have tested positive. However, it is not a widespread testing mandate.
The update comes after President Trump’s positive diagnosis ramped up concerns of exposure on Capitol Hill.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, rejected an offer from the White House for rapid tests on Capitol Hill in the spring to save resources for those on the front lines.
Part of the reasoning earlier in the year was that there needed to be enough tests not only for members but also for all those working on the Hill, including staffers, custodial personnel, members of the press and Capitol police.
Calls for tests came from across the political spectrum, from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, California Republican, to Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat.
Progressive superstar Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who commutes from her district in New York, noted that the constant travel of Congress members puts Capitol Hill in a position to be a potential “superspreader event.”
“I really do think that there’s a strong possibility that every time we convene in a session, it could, it has the potential to be a superspreader event,” she told reporters. “We’re talking about 425 members of Congress coming from all over the country flying on planes coming here. Many carriers of the disease are asymptomatic and so unless we are getting frequently tested, which there currently is no mandate for, there’s always the possibility that somebody may have contracted it and be asymptomatic.”
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