Noted Covid Understander Mike Pence Won't Quarantine Despite Likely Exposure

Like any reasonable person who definitely understands how covid-19 transmission works, Mike Pence is refusing to quarantine following an outbreak among staff in his inner circle. That means he’s going to keep traveling across state lines in order to get very close to very large crowds of people because he what? Definitely understands covid.

At least five individuals who work closely with Pence have tested positive for the virus, CNN reports, including chief of staff Marc Short, close aid Zach Bauer, and outside adviser Marty Obst. All of them work in close proximity to the vice president on a daily basis. Bauer, for example, works as his literal “body man,” meaning that he follows Pence around all day and night helping him with a wide variety of shit he needs to get done.

Given all that, exposure seems pretty likely, right? Right. But the vice president, who also happens to head up the White House’s coronavirus task force, isn’t going to let a little thing like exposure to an easily virus communicable virus that has already killed more than 224,000 people at press time, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, stop him from campaigning for reelection. I mean, Nov. 3 is only nine days away! What’s he gonna do, not risk furthering the spread of covid all over the United States?

White House chief of staff Mark Meadows defended Pence’s decision to keep campaigning for reelection during a State of the Union interview with Jake Tapper this weekend, The New York Times reports, claiming that he’s an essential worker who’s doing essential work. The essential work of not taking seriously a viral pandemic that hit a new record high of daily infections in the U.S. on Friday, per Time? Because yes, he’s definitely doing that essential work all right.