New Hampshire state representative Richard Hinch, elected as Speaker last week after the Republicans flipped the chamber in the November election, died from COVID-19 yesterday.
About 200 members of the House Republican caucus had met in late November at a ski facility to nominate officers. Cases were reported shortly afterward, and the state health department initiated contact tracing. No Democratic members were informed of the meeting, and Republican governor Chris Sununu called the gathering “horribly managed.”
New Hampshire has largely been spared the ravages of the pandemic until now. More than a quarter of the more than 28,000 cases in the state have been reported in December, and the test positivity rate is now at about nine percent.