Members of Congress will not be required to get the COVID-19 vaccine, however have been inspired to get the jab.
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All 535 members of Congress will be capable to attend President Biden’s March 1 State of the Union tackle, however gained’t be allowed to deliver friends and also will must put on KN95 or N95 masks the entire time, in line with new steering from the legislative department’s attending doctor.
Would-be attendees may even must submit a destructive COVID-19 check inside 24 hours of the occasion, per a memo from Dr. Brian Monahan.
Members of Congress and different attendees are additionally “strongly really helpful” to have gotten their COVID-19 booster shot earlier than Feb. 15 –and shall be required to make use of a waterless “hand cleanser” upon coming into the Home chamber and keep away from bodily contact with different folks.
Attendees shall be scattered throughout the Home ground and the viewing galleries, limiting the viewers to about 50 p.c of the standard in-person State of the Union crowd of 1,100.
In April of final yr, Biden gave an tackle to a joint session of Congress at which the variety of attendees was capped at 200.
Subsequent month’s speech shall be Biden’s first State of the Union tackle and the newest the spectacle has been held within the fashionable period.
Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi invited the president to ship the tackle final month, praising him for his “daring imaginative and prescient and patriotic management which have guided America out of disaster and into an period of nice progress.”
Previous to this yr, the newest date for a State of the Union tackle was for the one delivered by Ronald Reagan on Feb. 6, 1985. Former President Donald Trump’s final two addresses came about on Feb. 5, 2019, and Feb. 4, 2020, shortly earlier than the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since July, Pelosi (D-Calif.) has required members to put on masks within the chamber besides when talking throughout debate. The Senate has no such requirement.
State of the Union tackle in 2020.
Home management has enforced the rule by issuing fines to their colleagues — most of them vocal Republicans — who refuse to put on a masks. Penalties embody a positive of $500 for a primary offense and $2,500 for each offense after that.
As of December, Georgia Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Andrew Clyde had incurred greater than $100,000 mixed in fines, in line with the New York Occasions.
Members of Congress will not be required to get the COVID-19 vaccine, however have been inspired to take action by leaders of each events.
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