“We are at a critical point in preventing our health systems, and the hospital care of the state as a whole, from being overrun,” Nate Wardle, the spokesperson, said.
The hearing was held by the all-Republican Senate Majority Policy Committee. Though the committee has no power to advance legislation, it can and often meets to discuss policy issues important to its members.
Last week, that issue involved unfounded allegations by President Donald Trump’s campaign that there was widespread fraud during the Nov. 3 election. His supporters claim there can be only one surefire remedy: throwing out the state’s vote results (which were certified last week for President-elect Joe Biden).
Temperatures of people attending the hearing were not taken at the door, and even after the room swelled with attendees, organizers began allowing an overflow crowd to enter. Before the meeting started, several legislators gathered in an adjacent “holding room,” where they sat around a conference table, according to a source in attendance.
That included Mastriano. When he and others emerged from the holding room, several lawmakers were not wearing masks. Many also kept them off during the hearing.
Later that day, Mastriano was among a small group of people who traveled to the White House to meet with Trump. There, the Associated Press reported Sunday, Mastriano tested positive for the coronavirus while in the West Wing and had to leave.
Mastriano has not returned repeated calls seeking comment.
But during a free-wheeling, half-hour Facebook live session Monday night — which has since been removed from his page — Mastriano confirmed he had tested positive for the coronavirus, even as he asserted, without evidence, that the AP report was “full of fictions and falsehoods.”
Mastriano claimed he caught the virus in an unspecified location’s “basement suite” where there were two people with COVID-19, and that he did not exhibit any classic symptoms like coughing or fever. He did not explain when he was in the basement suite, or what he was doing there, although he suggested it was for a media appearance.
“Before I got on camera, they had a makeup artist there,” he said. “And sadly that person used the same brushes on me she did on the other people before me.”
“I knew right there, stop her, don’t let her put those brushes on your face, just walk away, and I didn’t,” he said.
Still, Mastriano did not disclose when he learned that two people in that basement suite had COVID-19 and whether he was informed of it in advance of the Gettysburg hearing.
During the Monday Facebook Live session, Mastriano said he was in quarantine, and that people who he’s been in contact with had been notified. He also announced Tuesday on his Facebook page that he was canceling a Christmas event he planned to hold this Saturday in the Capitol.
Late Monday, another Republican senator who attended the Gettysburg event, Judy Ward of Blair County, wrote on her Facebook page that she had tested positive for COVID-19. But she said she believes her positive result can be traced to a gathering on Thanksgiving day.
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