A hearing on Feb. 1, featuring emotional testimony from families who’ve been barred from seeing loved ones in hospitals and nursing homes during the pandemic, gave second wind to a bill by Senator Jerry Sonnenberg, R-Sterling.

Senate Bill 53 was assigned to the Senate’s State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee, usually a bad sign that Democratic leaders had put out the order to kill the bill.

But the committee’s chair, Sen. Julie Gonzales, D-Denver, knows first-hand what it’s like to lose a loved one to COVID; at least three members of her family died from the virus just over...