The mood at the Capitol was already dark. Then came Omicron.| Breaking News Updates

(Ms Greene’s father built a major construction business in the Atlanta area before selling it to his daughter and son-in-law, while Mr. Clyde’s huge gun store Clyde Armory, kept it low to the ground. They’ve already absorbed over $ 100,000 in fines for their mask strike.)

Speaking just outside the bedroom without his mask, Rep. Lee Zeldin, Republican from New York, was nonchalant. Omicron is mild, he said, and the steep rise in cases, in his home county on Long Island and across the country, will be followed by an equally steep drop.

“Those who test positive include the vaccinated and the unvaccinated, but for those I talk to – and there are many who have tested positive in recent weeks – luckily for them, every person I have spoken to has had a much smoother experience than what has been experienced in past variants, ”said Mr. Zeldin, candidate for governor of New York.

Democrats tend to be a little less optimistic. Signs posted throughout the house proclaim in capital letters “USE OF FACE COVER REQUIRED,” but they seem to have only prompted the rebels to dig.

“That kind of challenge, we see it everywhere here,” said Rep. James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, the Democratic whip, who missed his granddaughter’s wedding last month while battling Covid. “And these are people who I hope can survive whatever happens to them.”

The procedural machinations around voting rights legislation and criticism of President Biden’s social safety net and climate change bill may seem a bit out of place when cases soar, hospitalizations at Nationwide have increased 84% in the past two weeks and the average number of deaths now exceeds 1,700 per day.

Behind these major problems, the pandemic is once again becoming a political axis. House Democrats rushed new legislation Wednesday to provide free home coronavirus testing while Vermont independent Senator Bernie Sanders reintroduced his bill to send N95 masks to every home.