The new COVID-19 epicenter might just be Capitol Hill

It may be easier to figure out who in Washington hasn’t tested positive for COVID-19 in recent weeks.

A surge of coronavirus cases is seizing the U.S. Capitol like at no other point in the entire pandemic.

Now, to be clear, these aren’t serious cases in which someone is hospitalized or has to go to the emergency room. None of the House or Senate members who have contracted COVID in the recent wave have died — although late Rep. Ron Wright, R-Tex., passed after contracting COVID-19 early last year. Congressman-elect Luke Letlow, D-La., died form COVID complications in late 2020 — before he could even take office.

That said, the sheer number of COVID cases on Capitol Hill is eye-popping.

All told, at this writing, 135 members of the 117th Congress have tested positive.

Seventy-eight members have tested positive this calendar year.

The coronavirus caseload on Capitol Hill often matches — or even predicts — a wave in the general population. After all, we have “representative government” in the United States. And it seems that Congress has mostly aligned perfectly with the rest of the country as the pandemic endures peaks and valleys.

Such was the case when omicron struck late last year and the national COVID figures exploded. Congress witnessed a significant explosion of cases in December and January.

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Then cases began to diminish as omicron waned. 

However, COVID cases on Capitol Hill recently soared, starting around March 1.

March 1 was the day of President Biden’s State of the Union speech at the Capitol. It was also the same day Washington, D.C., began to ease its own mandates. Under the Constitution, Congress makes its own rules. So none of the COVID protocols in the District of Columbia affected Congress. However, D.C.’s decision to back off restrictions made it easier for Congress to do the same.