Campaigning for office is definitely important, but Tim Kaine took advantage of his time in front of the cameras today to press for something even more important.

“Congress should not be in recess when Zika is advancing. We ought to go back and call an emergency session,” said Kaine, a sitting senator from Virginia. … Kaine praised the Senate for passing a bipartisan bill 89-8 earlier this year, but the House added language restricting the use of some funds for women’s health care and also shifted some money away from Obamacare to pay for the new funding. Democrats balked and blocked the House-passed bill before leaving for a seven-week recess.

News of the first locally transmitted case of Zika in Florida came just a few days ago. Then it was four. Then 10. Then it jumped to 14 cases. And now the CDC has issued a travel warning of a kind it’s never had to write before.

Federal health officials on Monday urged pregnant women to stay away from a Miami neighborhood where they have discovered additional cases of Zika infection — apparently the first time the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has advised people not to travel to a place in the continental United States.

Those infected in Puerto Rico now number in the thousands, with hundreds of pregnancies at risk.

President Obama originally requested Zika funding six months ago. After months of stalling, the final bill was laced with poison pills meant to ensure its failure. Democrats requested a delay in the start of the summer break to address the problem—and Republicans simply ignored them.