Beyond the insurrectional riot at the nation’s Capitol last Wednesday, a major concern is the pandemic and the mass of maskless assholes both coming from outside the building, but also from Republican Congresscritters who in spiteful, arrogant disclaimers refused to cover their nasty faces.

And the result, an innocent victim:

Following the events of Wednesday, including sheltering with several colleagues who refused to wear masks, I decided to take a Covid test.

I have tested positive.https://t.co/wivlbwrmV0

— Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (@RepBonnie) January 11, 2021

These people do not give a shit about the reality of living, and continue living during an insidious pandemic, and just waved away masks like it was a fly, or some other irritant to brush aside.
Incredible place we are.
Some details via BuzzFeed this afternoon:

Watson Coleman was rushed off the floor of the House of Representatives Wednesday as Trump supporters attacked the Capitol, violently forcing their way past police.

While isolated in a room, video footage shows that at least six Republican members of Congress refused to accept face masks.

“I’m not trying to get political here,” Oklahoma Rep. Markwayne Mullin can be seen telling Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, who was handing out the masks. “I appreciate you.”
…
In a statement, Watson Coleman’s office said she believed she was exposed while in protective isolation.

Watson Coleman is a cancer survivor who underwent chemotherapy in 2018.

On Sunday, the Capitol’s attending physician notified members of Congress that they may have been exposed to someone who tested positive for COVID-19 while they were being sheltered during the attack, the Associated Press reported.

“Individuals may have been exposed to another occupant with coronavirus infection,” Dr. Brian Monahan told the lawmakers.

Among the members of Congress who are seen wearing no masks and refusing one when offered were Mullin and Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Greene is a new member of Congress who has openly supported and spread lies of the mass delusion QAnon and reportedly refused to wear a mask earlier this month on the floor of the House. She later did don a mask that read “Trump won,” propelling the lie that President Donald Trump won the election.

Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona, Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Rep. Michael Cloud of Texas, and Rep. Doug LaMalfa of California were also seen in the video without masks.

President-elect Joe Biden, speaking after he received the second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, called the refusal of Republican lawmakers to wear the masks as they sheltered in place “irresponsible.”

“I was appalled,” Biden said. “It’s not a political issue. It’s an issue of public safety.”

Worse, Coleman had already received the first of two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, like many of her colleagues. However, supposedly it takes a few weeks for the body to build immunity against COVID-19 after vaccination, according to the CDC.

Video of self-important assholes found at Punchbowl News:

In the midst of self-centered idiocy COVID continues unabated — virus seems to have taken a backburner slot due to coup, sedition, insurrection, impeachment, 25th Amendment, etc. — and even with vaccines rolling out, it’s way-still a science-fiction-horror story.
Latest from The New York Times live update this morning:

Whatever else the dawn of 2021 has brought, it has not slowed the relentless mounting of the pandemic’s toll in the United States.
The nation’s seven-day average of coronavirus-related deaths has broken past 3,000 a day, reaching 3,249 on Sunday. And the cumulative total of virus deaths surpassed 375,000 on Monday, according to a New York Times database.

California alone reported more than 3,300 virus deaths in the week ended Sunday.
No state except New York has recorded more than that in a single week.

The dire statistics follow a surge in new cases and hospitalizations that has extended to every part of the country.
On average, 254,866 new cases a day have been reported over the past week, 38 percent more than two weeks earlier.
As of Monday morning, a total of more than 22.4 million people in the United States have tested positive.
…
In an interview with NPR last week, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said the high death toll was likely to continue, and was probably a reflection of increased travel and gatherings over the holidays.

“We believe things will get worse as we get into January,” he said.
But he stressed that it was still possible to “blunt that acceleration” by strictly adhering to public health measures like social distancing and mask wearing, practices that he said must continue even as people begin to get vaccinated.

Tell that to the asshole Republicans…

(Illustration: MC Escher’s engraving, ‘Old Olive Tree,’ found here).