Mike Pence Kicks off Hands Across America Event to Fight Coronavirus

WASHINGTON — An estimated 5 million Americans participated in an impromptu Hands Across America event on Saturday, stretching from South Carolina down to the western border of Arkansas.

The spectacle, described as the keystone of Vice President Mike Pence’s coronavirus containment initiative, celebrates “social closeness” by bringing the country together literally hand-in-hand to pray against a highly virulent pathogen.

“Just look at that giant curve we’ve created,” Elkton resident Rodney Fitzgerald said, nodding towards an endless chain of men, women, and children holding hands and wiping each other’s faces. “Nothing’s gonna flatten our spirit today. America is going to beat this.”

Health experts have been slow to embrace the event as a viable means of combating the spread of COVID-19.

“Welp, there goes all hope for us beating this,” observed epidemiologist Dr. Samantha Jefferson, the head of the coronavirus response team at the University of Virginia Medical Center. “I could not have come up with a more asinine thing to do. You, me, and everyone you know are now completely and utterly screwed.”

“The wife and I were thinking of staying in today, but this was just too important to miss,” Fitzgerald said. “I care too much for this country to just sit in my house and self-quarantine like some are saying we should do. I don’t know what exactly it means, but it sounds perverted and I’m sure the Bible is against it.”

After the human transmission line dismantled, Pence released a statement: “I and the folks around me could truly feel the power of the Holy Spirit beginning to heal our nation. It felt very, very warm and gave several of us a little tickle in our throats.”

Following the event, the vice president departed for Italy, where he is expected to meet with officials for a planning session for Kisses Across Europe.