Biden Campaign Takes Extra Steps To Keep Him Safe From COVID-19

When 👤Jill Biden noticed her husband standing too close to journalists for her comfort while taking questions on Monday, she walked up and pulled the 77-year-old U.S. presidential candidate back.

People surrounding Democratic nominee 👤Joe Biden are taking heightened measures to protect the self-described “tactile politician” from a pandemic that has reached the White House, infecting President Donald Trump himself.

The Biden campaign – spooked by Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis just days after debating the former vice president face-to-face last week but unwilling to sideline him so close to the Nov. 3 election – said their candidate would be tested for the virus several times a week compared to just once per week before.

Biden also has started keeping his mask on throughout his remarks on the campaign trail, even when standing alone at a podium.

Both changes mark a new protocol for the campaign, which regards the novel coronavirus as an existential threat. Weeks ago, asked to name the biggest risk to the campaign, one of Biden’s aides was blunt: “a medical event.”

Trump had repeatedly mocked Biden for being risk-averse before his own hospitalization on Friday due to the virus, including during the debate.

A Biden adviser, who asked not to be named, said the turn of events with Trump’s health validated the safety-first approach that had been scorned even by some Democrats worried that Biden was being too cautious and not traveling enough.

The new protocols adds more complexity to a campaign that already had shattered norms.

Many Biden events now play to near-empty rooms and include no voters at all. Rigid adherence to regulations that vary state to state have meant cutting people from guest lists or redesigning events altogether, as in Michigan, where a rule prohibited more than 10 people from gathering indoors.