A healthy dose of public scorn is good for the conscience, isn’t that right, Vice President Mike Pence?

The VP showed up earlier this week at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., to talk to patients and staff members at the renowned research and teaching hospital. He flouted a Mayo policy requiring everyone in the building to wear a mask to protect against the coronavirus.

The public recrimination was stern and highly justified. Pence’s lame response was ridiculed.

OK. Then he goes to a General Motors plant and, bingo! He dons a mask right along with everyone else.

The veep didn’t look silly. He didn’t look unmanly. He looked as though he was following the rules.

Lesson learned? I hope so … but somehow, my doubts remain.

Oh, man. I had hoped Mike Pence would be above flouting a policy enacted by a major medical center. Silly me. The vice president is more like the president than I had thought.

The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., has enacted a policy that declares everyone in the place wears a mask. Pence visited the clinic today and was the only individual photographed who wasn’t wearing a mask to protect him against the coronavirus.

Uh, Mr. Vice President … what in the name of disease prevention is wrong with you? Mayo officials even said they would provide Pence with a mask.

Pence knew of the policy. He chose to parade around the joint without a mask. There he was, following the lead of Donald Trump, who declared that mask-wearing was a suggestion, but that he would forgo wearing a mask while working in the White House.

That’s leadership? That’s how you demonstrate to the nation that you are willing to do what health officials are asking the rest of us to do? Of course not!

It is an act of stupidity.

Truthfully, I thought Vice President Pence was smarter than that.