Coronavirus rules the presidential election campaign

Never has there been such an extraordinary American election campaign. The coronavirus pandemic is ruling everything, from the economy to the voting itself and also to the campaign as it moves inexorably towards the November 3 date. Now it's the turn of Kamala Harris to be hidebound by the virus after two of her people have tested positive, including her communications director Liz Allen. Senator Harris has as a result cancelled all her travel plans. All we need now is for Joe Biden to catch the virus and he would be off the campaign trail until the election, unless he were to copy Trump of course. It does make you ask the question: how can the last three weeks of campaigning have any real affect on voters if the virus is disrupting everything? Trump is back on the campaign trail but can he really be totally free of a disease which has given so many people long-term health problems? Kamala Harris doesn't have to self-isolate apparently because she wasn't in close contact with her communications director or with the member of her flight crew who has also tested positive, in the two days leading up to their tests and afterwards. But she has clearly been advised to be ultra cautious. Being president, would-be president, vice president and would-be vice president means that they have each had to endure the unpleasant testing process pretty well every day for weeks. They must be sick of it. Most of us on this planet haven't been tested once and the sight of people having testing sticks shoved down their throats is enough to put anyone off. Even when November 3 eventually arrives, we all know that the election is not going to be a simple question of mathematics: counting the votes and working out the electoral college formulae. It's going to be all about interpretation, expostulation, denegration and may be the Supreme Coourt.