It’s not a picture of a leader modeling good behavior in addressing COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus: There’s the macho, business-as-usual attitude. There’s the refusal to reduce public access to facilities and officials. There’s the show, for apparent political effect, of not being cowed by a mere microbe from doing the job the people elected you to do.

No, we’re not talking about Donald Trump. We’re talking about Nancy Pelosi.

Congress has work to do in the face of the virus—real work. Last week it appropriated $8.3 billion for emergency spending on research and public health measures. Now it has to consider what to do in response to possible economic fallout from the virus, everything from aid for hard-hit workers to a possible stimulus package. By its nature, moreover, Congress is a distributed body, requiring large numbers of people to convene in the same rooms in order to do much of anything. So the problem of how the institution should be organized in a time of rapidly spreading communicable disease is a hard one.

But here’s what Congress shouldn’t be doing: business as usual. In a normal situation, Congress is a Petri dish. There is large-scale public access to the Capitol complex. There are large numbers of tourists interacting with members and staff. There is a great deal of needless in-person human interaction that creates, in turn, needless vectors of possible transmission of disease. In the face of the current pandemic, the speaker of the House should be modeling organizational management designed to continue operations while minimizing physical presence and in-person interactions. She should be offering other organizations a highly visible example, which will legitimize early decisions by groups both private and public to think creatively in combating the virus.

At least so far, she’s not doing that.

On the night of Monday, March 10, reporters asked if Pelosi thought the Capitol should be closed: “No, no, no,” was her response. In a letter to colleagues that same day, she said that she and other House Democrats would hear the next morning from the sergeant-at-arms, Congress’s attending physician and the chief administrative officer for “an update on the continuity of operations protocols for the Capitol and to prepare our offices” and that these officials are “constantly monitoring developments.” She continued, “At the present time, there is no reason for us not to continue with our vital legislative work in the Capitol. Tomorrow morning, we will have an opportunity to hear from these officials together and discuss in greater detail.”

Asked about the possibility of leaving Washington or remote voting, Pelosi reportedly dismissed the idea: “We are the captains of the ship. We are the last to leave.”

Congress is already expected to be out of town next week, as well as two weeks in April. Asked on March 10 whether that schedule might change to address a new package of legislation to address the spread of COVID-19, Pelosi seemed to imply that the House would follow the regular recess schedule but would reconvene if needed and if there is a clear pathway in the Senate for additional legislation.