Wallingford, PA, Wednesday, May 27, 2020—State Representative Leanne Krueger (D-Delaware), Chair of the PA House Democratic Campaign Committee released a statement following the revelation that a Republican member of the Pennsylvania House has tested positive for COVID-19, at least two members are in self-isolation, and one of those members, Russ Diamond (R-Lebanon) has publicly stated that he would not get tested nor vaccinated for coronavirus.
“After two months of Republican members flagrantly ignoring public health and medical experts, insisting on showing up to the Capitol without cloth masks, it is as if we were always headed for a coronavirus catastrophe in the Pennsylvania House. While Republican leadership apparently knew about the COVID-19 positive member a week ago, they only told Republican members to self-isolate. Democratic members learned about it today from a reporter. They never even informed Democrats who were in close proximity with him during Committee meetings.
“Before becoming a member of the House, I never thought that medicine or public health were partisan issues. As if all the assaults on women’s health weren’t enough evidence, the last two months of quarantine—voting and participating in legislative business remotely—have taught me that there are some folks who just cannot be trusted with the welfare of our society: they don’t believe in science, scoff at public health directives, and turn a public health emergency, from which 100,000 Americans have died, into a joke, refusing to wear masks and packing into small meeting rooms for Committee meetings.
“Every day, I pray for the safety of my family, my constituents and their families, for my staff, and for my colleagues. Too many of our family and friends and neighbors have died in this pandemic to take it anything but seriously. But we still have a group of people, the most extreme of the right wing, who thinks COVID-19 is a hoax and that money is more important than peoples’ lives.
“The utter indifference to peoples’ lives—colleagues and constituents—by the Majority Party in general and members like the ‘gentleman’ from Lebanon County specifically proves that they are incapable, unqualified, and unwilling to faithfully discharge the duties of their office.”
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