Congress’ Office of the Attending Physician announced the policy change Sunday, lifting a requirement that has been in place for much of the past two years and had become a partisan flashpoint on Capitol Hill.
WASHINGTON — Face coverings are now optional for President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address Tuesday, as Congress is lifting its mask requirement on the House floor after federal regulators eased guidelines last week in a rethinking of the nation’s strategy to adapt to living with a more manageable COVID-19.
The nation’s capital is now in an area considered low risk under the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s new metrics, which place less of a focus on positive test results and more on what’s happening in community hospitals. The new system greatly changes the look of the CDC’s risk map and puts more than 70% of the U.S. population in counties where the coronavirus is posing a low or medium threat to hospitals.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced initial guidelines earlier this month from the Office of the Sergeant at Arms that included a threat that violation of guidelines for social distancing and mask wearing during the event would “result in the attendee’s removal.” The new policy eases the fears of some Biden allies who had been gearing up for potentially disruptive protests from Republicans to the policies.
Seating for Biden’s first address to a joint session of Congress, last April, was capped at about 200 — about 20% of usual capacity for a presidential presentation — and White House aides fretted that a repeat would be a dissonant image from the message the president aimed to deliver to the American people.
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