The chief of staff to former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan and new Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch told lawmakers Friday morning that she, along with two others, tested positive for the coronavirus while the General Assembly was in Springfield for its lame-duck session and inauguration.
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House members and staff were told a day earlier to self-quarantine if they were at the Bank of Springfield Center on Thursday because someone who was at the facility tested positive for the coronavirus.
Those instructions were issued in a memo from Jessica Basham, the chief of staff to the new House speaker, Welch.
“I have been tested daily, and yesterday I received notice that my rapid test was positive,” Basham wrote in an email Friday. “I have been made aware of 2 other confirmed positives, and my PCR results came back, confirming my own positive.”
Basham wrote that she felt fine Thursday morning but began experiencing mild symptoms later in the day and is quarantining at home.
Basham was in close contact with the current and former speaker, as well as many other House Democrats and staff, throughout the lame-duck session.
Both Welch and Madigan tested negative for the virus, a spokesman said.
Welch already tested positive for the coronavirus in November but still plans to self-quarantine, the spokesman said.
Separately, the staff of the Senate Democrats and Republicans late Thursday notified people who were at the Capitol complex from Saturday through Thursday that they should self-isolate after someone who was there reported a positive test.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker spent time at the Capitol this week, holding a Monday news conference and presiding over inauguration in the Senate on Thursday.
Pritzker was scheduled to hold a noon news conference Friday at the James R. Thompson Center in Chicago but will hold it virtually “out of an abundance of caution,” spokeswoman Jordan Abudayyeh said.
“The governor has not been identified as a close contact of this person as of right now,” Abudayyeh said.
The person who tested positive was not on or near the Senate floor during Wednesday’s inauguration and did not come into contact with anyone who testified in the chamber during committee hearings during the lame-duck session, said John Patterson, a spokesman for Senate President Don Harmon.
The House convened for a brief time Thursday morning after the previous day’s inauguration and election of Welch to replace Madigan.
The chamber’s lame-duck session, which began Friday, was held in the cavernous downtown Springfield convention center to ensure proper social distancing. Members and staff were required to wear masks except when eating or drinking, but enforcement was lax, despite repeated reminders during debates.
When lawmakers met at the convention center for a pandemic-driven special session in late May, they were told a worker had tested positive, but the facility’s general manager later told The State Journal-Register in Springfield that the employee was ill but tested negative for the coronavirus.