COMMENTARY

MIKE PENCE NOT WEARING A MASK AT MAYO CLINIC: ENDANGERING OTHERS

By ANH LÊ 

Vice President Mike Pence went to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota on April 28 for a tour of its lab and to seek grabbing another photo op during the national COVID-19 corona virus pandemic plaguing our country.

Pence refused to wear a mask while at the Mayo Clinic.  His behavior is inexcusable.

While at the Mayo Clinic, Pence walked through the public areas, putting everyone at risk.

All the Mayo doctors who accompanied Pence wore masks.

Pence's action is a flagrant violation of Mayo Clinic's own policy, which it issued on April 13:

"Mayo Clinic is requiring all patients and visitors to wear a face covering or mask to help slow the spread of COVID-19... This (is) based on recommendations from the U.S. Centers for Disease and Prevention (CDC) and Mayo Clinic experts. (This is) to ensure the safety of its staff, patients, and visitors."

The Mayo Clinic doctors should have enforced their Clinic's policy without reservation and without exception.

The Mayo doctors' inaction put everyone at risk, including its own employee and patient, Michael Joyner, who reportedly recently recovered from a COVID-19 corona virus infection.

When Pence stood over Mr. Joyner, Mr. Joyner, who was wearing a mask and sitting in a patient chair, was donating his plasma.

Pence put Mr. Joyner at risk, by not wearing a mask and by not maintaining the required "social distancing" of at least 6 feet during this COVID-19 corona virus pandemic.

Does Mayo Clinic not care about protecting Mr. Joyner and other patients?

What is the Clinic's ethical, moral, and medical responsibility?

To allow Pence to walk through the Clinic, including a patient area and a lab, is unfathomable.

To allow Pence to endanger others is a failure of the Mayo Clinic doctors.

Besides Pence's blatant disregard of the Mayo Clinic's policy to protect their patients, staff, and visitors, and the CDC's own recommendations, the Administration's abysmal inaction to address the COVID-19 corona virus pandemic promptly, its failures still to provide sufficient testing kits, masks, personal protective equipment, and ventilators, has not only been an abject failure, but has resulted in many more deaths across our nation.

No amount of swagger by Pence, disingenuous double-talk and sound bites regarding the Administration's handling of the COVID-19 corona virus pandemic, the grabbing of photo ops, or outright disregard for the Mayo Clinic's policy, can blind the people of Minnesota and the citizens of the United States.

By ANH LÊ is an independent journalist based in San Francisco.

COPYRIGHT ANH LÊ APRIL 29, 2020

https://www.prlog.org/12820607-anh-mike-pence-maskless-at-mayo-clinic-dangerous-inexcusable.html