Alleged pandemic expert Mike Pence did a very stupid thing in the middle of a pandemic last week and did not wear a mask while visiting covid-19 patients at the Mayo Clinic, despite the fact that Mayo Clinic staff specifically asked Mike Pence, an alleged pandemic expert, to do so. That, along with several other things alleged pandemic expert Mike Pence has done throughout the course of this pandemic, suggest alleged pandemic expert Mike Pence isn’t much of a pandemic expert at all. Either way, though, Pence concedes in the case of the Mayo Clinic that he did an oopsy.
Pence admitted as much at a Fox News town hall on Sunday, according to CNN. “I didn’t think it was necessary but I should have worn the mask at the Mayo Clinic,” he said, noting that he wore one at a ventilator plant in Indiana a few days after the Mayo Clinic visit.
Whether or not it was “necessary,” it was, in fact, required: the Vice President’s own staff told journalists the “wearing of masks was required” at the Mayo Clinic and to “prepare accordingly.” Not only that, the Mayo Clinic asked Pence specifically to wear a mask, since the alleged pandemic expert is notoriously reluctant to don one, despite CDC recommendations urging Americans to cover their faces when social distancing isn’t possible. We wear masks to protect ourselves, and we wear masks to protect other people, neither of which Pence seems particularly interested in doing, despite his role as the head of the entire (very bad!) pandemic response.
At the very least, it seems Pence now suggests Americans wear masks in general. “It really is a statement about the American people, the way people have been willing to step forward, practice social distancing, wear masks in settings where they can’t do that,” he said on Sunday. “As we continue to practice those principles, all of us together, I know we’ll get through this.”