The State Department has advised against all international travel because of the coronavirus, but that didn't stop Secretary of State Mike Pompeo from flying to Afghanistan this week.
Gyms across the nation's capital are shuttered, but Sen. Rand Paul, an eye doctor, still managed a workout at the Senate on Sunday morning as he awaited the results of a coronavirus test. It came back positive.
The guidance against shaking hands? That hasn't always applied to President Donald Trump, whose penchant for pressing the flesh continued even after public health officials in his administration were warning that such bodily contact could facilitate the spread of the contagious virus. Practice social distancing? Daily White House briefings involve Trump and other senior officials crowded around a podium.
Even as the country has largely hunkered down, heeding the guidance of health experts and the directives of state leaders, some powerful people in Washington have defied preventative measures aimed at curbing the spread.
Their business-as-usual actions are at odds with the restrictions everyday Americans find themselves under and with the government's own messaging.
Some human behavior experts say the "do as I say, not as I do"' ethos seemingly on display is common among powerful officials, who may be inclined to think rules for the general public don't apply to them in the same way or who can easily disassociate their own actions from what they say is best for others.
When we have high power, we think of ourselves as exceptional as if the rules don't apply to us," said Maurice Schweitzer, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania who has researched behavior and decision-making. We're much more prone to do what we want because we don't feel constrained in the way that less powerful people do."
Not only that we should be physically separating a bit more on those press conferences." Several senators, meanwhile, scolded Paul for refusing to self-quarantine after he'd been tested, with the doctor overseeing the government's coronavirus response suggesting the Kentucky Republican's actions fell short of model personal responsibility."
Trump raised eyebrows among public health specialists when he methodically shook the hands of retail and health industry specialists at a Rose Garden news conference two weeks ago. He acknowledged Monday that shaking hands has been a hard habit for him to break, having become accustomed as president to doing so with literally thousands of people a week."
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