As he has throughout his tenure, Biden is trying to model the behavior the government is recommending. He’s fully vaccinated and double-boosted, having received an additional shot within days of their authorization for people over the age of 50 or who are immunocompromised. When the CDC urged wearing masks in public spaces, the president wore one except when speaking, to the point where Republicans mocked him for keeping his face covered while walking outside alone during trips between his helicopter and the White House. Now that the CDC has updated its recommendations, Biden is back to glad-handing in close quarters without a mask.

Yet the push for normalcy is complicated when the leaders doing the pushing are, according to the CDC, still at the highest risk of getting very sick or dying from COVID. People in Biden and Pelosi’s age group, 75–84, represent just 3.3 percent of COVID-19 cases recorded during the pandemic, but they make up more than one-quarter of all deaths. That older Americans comprise such a small portion of overall cases is likely because millions of them are long retired and interact with far fewer people than the president of the United States and the speaker of the House. (Both of Pelosi’s octogenarian lieutenants, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, 82, and Majority Whip James Clyburn, 81, weathered mild COVID-19 cases during the winter Omicron wave.) With COVID cases rising again in more than half the country, including the District of Columbia, public-health experts are encouraging people at higher risk for severe COVID, including the elderly, to exercise more precautions. Can Biden do that while projecting “normalcy”?

The CDC already recommends that older adults take extra precautions to reduce their risk of contracting the virus, but the White House has given no indication that Biden will do so. This afternoon he watched alongside his Supreme Court nominee, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, as the Senate confirmed her to the bench. The two embraced, and neither wore a mask. Biden’s current relaxed posture toward the virus may represent a political imperative for the president heading into an election season that is already expected to be difficult for his party; the public, Biden acknowledged last month, is “tired, frustrated, and exhausted” after more than two years of pandemic life. Certainly now is a comparatively better time to get the coronavirus than when Trump fell sick barely a month ahead of the 2020 election, before the availability of vaccines.