Sen. Lamar Alexander Self-Quarantining, Two Days Before Committee He Chairs Will Hold Hearing on Reopening Economy

This coming Tuesday, there’s a Senate Health Committee hearing to discuss reopening American schools and businesses. All the key personnel at that hearing — including the Senator who chairs the committee and the expert witnesses — are self-quarantining after recently being exposed to someone who tested positive for Covid-19, and will be appearing by videoconference.

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), who has chaired the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions since 2015, is self-quarantining at home in Tennessee after a staff member tested positive, according to a statement released by his office on Sunday.

According to the statement, the unnamed staff member “is recovering at home and is doing well.”

After consulting with the Senate’s attending physician, Alexander decided to remain home in Tennessee and self-quarantine for 14 days.

Like most Congressional office staff, the majority of Alexander’s staff have been working from home, so no other staff members would need to self-quarantine.

Alexander’s committee is scheduled to hold a hearing related to the coronavirus pandemic on Tuesday morning.

The hearing, scheduled to begin at 10:00 am ET, is titled “COVID-19: Safely Getting Back to Work and Back to School,” and witnesses include some of the most recognizable names from the federal government’s efforts to contain the coronavirus pandemic: Dr. Anthony Fauci, CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield, Assistant Secretary for Health Adm. Brett Giroir, and FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn.

Fauci, Redfield, and Hahn are all self-quarantining after an exposure to a White House staffer who had a positive coronavirus test. It is not clear if Giroir is in the same situation, although it’s certainly a real possibility since he works with the others on the White House’s Coronavirus Task Force.

Fauci, et al. have the advantage of access to daily coronavirus tests, and have been taking their temperatures on a daily basis as well. The access to testing remains much lower for the majority of Americans.

“If we can’t keep coronavirus out of the White House, how are businesses supposed to safely reopen?” CNN’s Don Lemon asked on his Sunday evening program.