Washington: The US Vice presidential nominees Mike Pence, and Kamala Harris during their only debate on Wednesday night serves as a reminder that the pandemic has returned front and center in the US presidential elections. The buffer zone of 12 feet and 3 inches, agreed upon after testy negotiation, is also an apt metaphor for the partisan politics, chasm, nitpicking, suspicion that had befallen America over its approach to the pandemic after it struck the white house, infecting the president Trump and 15 people in his inner circle.

Amid calls from several democrat Partisans for Harris to ditch the debate because of the Vice president’s own exposure to the virus, the pence team reluctantly agreed to the safe guards after initially mocking it. It was evidently chastened by news that yet another trump aide, the immigration phobic Stephen miller had tested positive for Covid-19.

Just hours earlier, millers wife Kaite, who is pence’s speech writer, had sneered at the opposition, saying, “If Senator Harris wants to use a fortress around herself, have at it”. She left the team to quarantine soon after her husband’s diagnosis became public although she herself had been infected over a month ago and recovered. But Wednesday night’s 90 minute face off in salt lake city is arguably the most consequential one in history given that both presidential candidates are septuagenarians, who are not in the pink of health in the time of Covid-19, giving added resonance to the belief that vice-president’s are a heartbeat away from the white house.

Some pundit’s also see it is it as an audition for 2024 race. Indeed, there are doubts about whether the second presidential debate will even take place if trump is not given an all clear that he has recovered. Although there are no listed topic for the veep debate, the pandemic is expected to feature prominently given that pence is also head of the Covid-19 taskforce and will be called on to defend the president’s handling of the crises.

Most political watchers expect Harris, a former prosecutor, to walk all over pence given her gladiatorial performance at Senate hearings. But pence, a six term congress man and a former governor of Indiana, are no slough and can turn on the Mid-Western charm and calm. In a tweet a day before the debate, Harris encouraged people to vote, saying she’s voting “For people like my mother, Shyamala, who taught my sister and mean that if you see a problem, you don’t complain about it: you do something about it”.