Congress Unmasked for State of the Union

WASHINGTON — It’ll be masks off for President Joe Biden’s first State of the Union address on Tuesday as the House is lifting the mask mandate that has been in place almost since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Brian Monahan, the Capitol’s attending physician, announced the change in policy on Sunday.

In doing so, he explained that based on a new set of measures unveiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday, the level of COVID-19 infections had dropped to such an extent that mask wearing should be optional rather than mandatory.

In fact, in an analysis accompanying the new guidelines, the CDC deemed the entire District of Columbia as a “low risk” area for COVID.

The city is responding by also lifting its indoor mask mandate on Tuesday, except in specific circumstances.

As for the House, Monahan did say some people should continue to wear a “properly fitted, high-quality filtration mask” when inside the Capitol, including those “with symptoms, a positive test or who have had exposure to someone with COVID-19.”

The doctor stressed, however, that he was only offering advice, not promulgating a rule.

The Capitol’s walk-in testing site for employees will continue operating, according to Monahan’s memo. But the distribution of at-home testing kits that started last year after the surge of the omicron variant will be paused starting March 7, only to resume if cases rise again.

Monahan said Sunday that the rate of positive tests at the Capitol’s testing site is down to 2.7% over the last two weeks, below even the current rates for Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia.

Of those who tested positive for COVID-19 in the past two weeks at the Capitol, 89% were vaccinated individuals. Sixty-three percent of cases were symptomatic, with 37% detected in asymptomatic employees.

The mask mandate in the House has long been a partisan flashpoint, with many Republicans rebelling against it. Nevertheless, the House sergeant-at-arms rigorously enforced the mandate, and as result a few members became serial scofflaws.

Among the most high profile of these were Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Andrew Clyde, both Republicans of Georgia, who racked up tens of thousands of dollars in combined fines for not wearing masks.

Unlike the House, the Senate never adopted mask mandates, citing high vaccination rates, though individual offices set their own policies.

The president’s State of the Union address will be open to all members of Congress, although attendees will be required to produce a negative coronavirus test before entering the chamber for the president’s annual message.

Biden addressed the chamber last year, but it was not officially a State of the Union address. During that appearance, the president spoke to a socially distanced audience of fewer than 200 officials.

Speaking of the president, the White House Correspondents’ Association announced Sunday the White House is currently assessing the new CDC guidance and the District of Columbia’s indoor mask mandate to determine the protocols going forward for the White House press room.

Dan can be reached at [email protected] and at https://twitter.com/DanMcCue.