In the aftermath of the Democratic National Convention (DNC), several people who attended the event have announced that they have tested positive for COVID-19.
Reporters, lawyers, and delegates who attended the Democrat convention in Chicago were reported to have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to the New York Post.
“When you spend five days in Chicago for the DNC and come home with COVID-19,” Christopher Wiggins, a senior national reporter with the Advocate wrote in a post on X. “Womp womp.”
“A friend who was at the DNC posted a positive test and said the surprise guest was, in fact, Covid,” another person wrote in a post on X, referring to reports that a surprise guest was supposed to appear on the last day of the convention.
“Indeed,” Yasmine Taeb, a human rights lawyer wrote in a post on X in response to the post that the “surprise guest” at the DNC had been COVID-19.
Taeb added that she had “arrived at the DNC healthy and hopeful and left very sick and disillusioned.”
In a post on Facebook, Jared Schablein, a Maryland delegate to the DNC reportedly wrote that the “downside of going to the DNC” was getting COVID-19 and added that his symptoms were “mild.”
“Well, the only downside of going to the DNC is contracting Covid-19,” Schablein wrote. “Fortunately, my symptoms are mild, and I’m resting. Still not fun, though.”
Schablein wrote that “a good chunk of the Maryland delegation” had allegedly tested positive for COVID-19.
The convention held in Chicago comes years after the Democrats held a four-day virtual DNC in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Several people took to social media to criticize the organizers of the DNC for having “no mitigations during a massive covid surge.”
“It’s infuriating that the DNC required no mitigations during a massive covid surge,” David Kronig, who works with the nonprofit watchdog group American Oversight, wrote in a post. “It’s so irresponsible on a community level but also so short-sighted. These are the most engaged Democrats in the country, & now they’re all gonna be out of the fight for weeks, months, or forever.”
Another person criticized an interview on CNN in which a person was asked what it was “like being in a room” for an event that “four years ago” would have been labeled a “superspreader event.”
“There is so much information in this interview,” the person wrote on X. “The DNC convention is a superspreader and happening during the peak of one of the largest summer COVID surges of the pandemic.”
The positive COVID-19 test results from people who had attended the DNC comes as there has been a reported increase in coronavirus infections. Health officials have reportedly warned school officials and families to take steps to prevent the spread of COVID-19, according to the Hill.
