An election-related hearing last week organized by Republican Sen. Doug Mastriano drew dozens of spectators, many of them maskless, to a Gettysburg hotel conference room for nearly four hours.

Just a few hours later, Mastriano tested positive for COVID-19 during a trip to the White House. And on Monday, a second GOP senator who attended the event tested positive.

Yet Republicans who control the chamber have gone silent, Spotlight PA reports, with leadership refusing to disclose if there have been efforts to track down the roughly 100 people who attended the hearing.

“It seems to me that a body like our state Senate should be modeling appropriate behavior, instead of behavior that is inappropriate such as this," one public health expert said.

During a half-hour Facebook live session Monday night — which has since been removed from his page — Mastriano confirmed he had tested positive for the coronavirus. He claimed he contracted it from a make-up artist's brush that had been used on him before some type of media spot.

THE CONTEXT: The GOP's silence comes as coronavirus cases and hospitalizations surge, making mitigation efforts like wearing masks and not gathering in small spaces more important than ever.

On Tuesday, Gov. Tom Wolf announced that five additional mobile testing units will be deployed to primarily rural parts of Pennsylvania. The state's testing rate is still lagging behind much of the country, as labs struggle with a lack of staff.

All but one county is seeing "substantial" spread of the virus. Hospitalizations continue to increase at exponential rates, and the number of patients on ventilators is approaching the state's all-time highs. You can follow all of the latest data using our live coronavirus tracker.

"To be blunt, daily cases of COVID-19 are at an all-time high, and we are reaching a critical tipping point in our ability to maintain effective face-to-face programming."

— David Christopher, Cumberland Valley School District's superintendent, asking parents to follow public health guidelines

YOU'RE INVITED!: The surge and the coming vaccines are top of mind for Pennsylvanians this winter. At 4 p.m. Dec. 7, join Spotlight PA’s panel of health experts to get your questions answered about testing, schools, holiday stress, tracing effectiveness, what to expect from those vaccines, and more. You can RSVP for free right now to claim your spot.

AIDS AWARENESS: December is National AIDS Awareness Month. One man living with HIV is honoring those who participate in the University of Pittsburgh's long-running and life-saving HIV/AIDS study by volunteering as part of a coronavirus vaccine trial. 

SWEET TREAT: The new season of "Kids Baking Championship" on the Food Network premieres later this month and features two young bakers from Pennsylvania: 12-year-old Jonah Anderson of Harrisburg, and 12-year-old Cydney Cain of Prospect Park. They're both baking for a shot at $25,000.

DESPICABLE WORDS: We asked for your words of 2020 that you want to throw away. The overwhelming winner? Unprecedented. "For the love of anything that is holy, can we please stop calling these times 'unprecedented?' one reader wrote. "I am so sick of hearing this word," another said.

FREE COFFEE: If you're a first responder or health care worker, or know one, this is for you: 1) THANK YOU! 2) Let them know they can get free coffee for all of December at participating Starbucks.