Nine members of Congress chose to quarantine themselves after coming in close proximity to someone who tested positive for coronavirus.
The majority of these lawmakers, all of them Republicans, were in attendance at two recent gatherings: the Conservative Political Action Conference and a trip to Mar-a-Lago. Not one member of Congress has reported feeling ill or tested positive for COVID-19 but self-quarantined out of an abundance of caution.
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Several Republicans quarantined themselves after being notified that an attendee at CPAC, a New York doctor, tested positive for the virus: Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Reps. Matt Gaetz of Florida, Doug Collins of Georgia, Paul Gosar of Arizona, and Mark Meadows of North Carolina, who has been picked to be President Trump’s next chief of staff.
Gosar was the only one known to have spent an “extended period of time” with “patient zero,” who was not experiencing symptoms at the event in National Harbor, Maryland.
“I have been informed that during the CPAC conference members of my staff and I came into contact with an individual who has since tested positive for, and is hospitalized for, COVID-19. I was with the individual for an extended period of time, and we shook hands several times,” the Arizona congressman said in a statement.
Cruz said his interaction with the attendee was “less than a minute“; Gaetz, who spent time with Trump on Air Force One, tested negative.
Two more lawmakers opted to quarantine themselves as a precautionary measure after it became known that an aide to Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s delegation, who visited Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, over the weekend, tested positive for coronavirus. They were Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Rick Scott of Florida.
Scott said the Senate’s attending physician and his personal doctor told him that his chance to contract the virus is “low” and that he does not need to get tested for it.
Trump hosted Bolsonaro for a working dinner Saturday to discuss the Venezuela crisis and other avenues of partnership between the United States and Brazil, only to learn days later that one of the Brazilian leader’s top advisers had contracted the coronavirus. Bolsonaro’s communication secretary Fabio Wajngarten, who tested positive for the virus, was photographed with Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, but the White House stressed that they had “almost no interactions with the individual who tested positive and do not require being tested at this time.”
Two Democrats also quarantined themselves. Rep. Julia Brownley of California said she is closing her Capitol Hill office for the week and is working remotely after learning an individual she met with in D.C. last week tested positive for the coronavirus. Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia also quarantined himself after he and his wife had dinner with a friend who later tested positive for the virus.
This post will be updated in the event additional members of Congress self-quarantine.
