Progressive champion Representative Pramila Jayapal has tested positive for COVID-19

Sad news to share: our own Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Prami­la Jaya­pal says that she has test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19, the nov­el coro­n­avirus. Here’s her full statement.

Unit­ed States Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Prami­la Jaya­pal (WA-07) received a pos­i­tive COVID-19 test result tonight after being locked down in a secured room at the U.S Capi­tol where numer­ous Repub­li­can law­mak­ers reck­less­ly refused to wear masks in the moments after the Jan­u­ary 6 attack. Dr. Bri­an Mon­a­han, the Attend­ing Physi­cian of the Unit­ed States Con­gress, advised rep­re­sen­ta­tives and Con­gres­sion­al staff on Sun­day that those in the secured room could have, “been exposed to anoth­er occu­pant with coro­n­avirus infec­tion.” The dura­tion in the room was mul­ti­ple hours and sev­er­al Repub­li­cans not only cru­el­ly refused to wear a mask but mocked col­leagues and staff who offered them one.

“Too many Repub­li­cans have refused to take this pan­dem­ic and virus seri­ous­ly, and in doing so, they endan­ger every­one around them. Only hours after Pres­i­dent Trump incit­ed a dead­ly assault on our Capi­tol, our coun­try, and our democ­ra­cy, many Repub­li­cans still refused to take the bare min­i­mum COVID-19 pre­cau­tion and sim­ply wear a damn mask in a crowd­ed room dur­ing a pan­dem­ic — cre­at­ing a super­spread­er event on top of a domes­tic ter­ror­ist attack,” said Con­gress­woman Jayapal.

“While I am iso­lat­ing per the Capi­tol Physician’s instruc­tions, I will con­tin­ue to work to the best of my abil­i­ty because the deep urgency of our many crises is paramount.”

“I share the out­rage and anger of my con­stituents and those across this coun­try who have watched Don­ald Trump fail to com­bat this rag­ing pan­dem­ic and refuse to take care of Amer­i­cans who are suf­fer­ing, dying, and dev­as­tat­ed. Now, we have also watched him open­ly fuel and incite these insur­rec­tion­ists who attacked the Capi­tol and our democ­ra­cy on Jan­u­ary 6—so I will not rest until I do every­thing in my pow­er to remove this Pres­i­dent from office.”

“I am also call­ing for seri­ous fines to be imme­di­ate­ly levied on every sin­gle Mem­ber who refus­es to wear a mask in the Capi­tol,” Jaya­pal con­tin­ued. “Addi­tion­al­ly, any Mem­ber who refus­es to wear a mask should be imme­di­ate­ly removed from the floor by the Sergeant at Arms. This is not a joke. Our lives and our liveli­hoods are at risk, and any­one who refus­es to wear a mask should be ful­ly held account­able for endan­ger­ing our lives because of their self­ish idiocy.”

Jaya­pal began quar­an­ti­ning imme­di­ate­ly after the attack on the U.S. Capi­tol, fear­ing and fore­see­ing exact­ly what would occur giv­en the num­ber of mask­less law­mak­ers sit­ting in the same room as her and her col­leagues. In an inter­view with The Cut on Thurs­day, she said, “I’m quar­an­ti­ning now because I am con­vinced that where we end­ed up, in the secured room — where there were over 100 peo­ple and many were Repub­li­cans not wear­ing masks — was a super­spread­er event.”

We have no fin­er rep­re­sen­ta­tive in Con­gress than Prami­la Jayapal.

Our hearts go out to our beloved Rep­re­sen­ta­tive. We wish her the best as she bat­tles this awful dis­ease. We’ll be pray­ing for her speedy recovery.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jaya­pal pre­vi­ous­ly received one dose of a COVID-19 vac­cine. The Pfiz­er and Mod­er­na vac­cines require two dos­es for max­i­mum efficacy.