| > Author chooses to show a particular political bias again and fails to mention the other major event that caused a uptick in cases (nationwide protests) So far the data says otherwise. It seems to be a combination of three things that made spreading at the protests low. 1. They were open air events where people were moving around a lot, 2. A large percentage of attendees were wearing masks, and 3. Not many attendees were infected. Health officials did heavy testing at several of the protests or of people shortly after they attended. In Minneapolis 1.8% were positive. Seattle was less than 1%. Boston was 1.1%. If you encountered an infected person at a protest, #1 alone greatly reduced your chances of being around that person long enough to get an infectious dose unless they actually were coughing or sneezing on you. Then you've got the masks making it even less likely. With only 1-2% infected, you probably won't encounter enough infected people serially for all the little exposures to add up. |
2. I do agree on this point (based on live feeds I observed), but we wouldn't be getting the full story if we just talked about the protesters and not the tear gassed rioters, indoor looters and police officers who didn't wear masks. [2]
3. I have some differing perspectives on this point:
Most of the attendees that were tested statistically were a younger and less vulnerable population [3], this cost time, effort and money. How would this not have a direct impact on the future testing capabilities and resources that some of those cities needed for more vulnerable populations and rising cases [4]?
More than 3300 people who participated in the protests in Minneapolis got tested and 1.4% (now 1.8%) of them had the virus. This is needs to stated along side of the 7 day average infection rate that week of 3.7% out of 13,000 people. [5]
It's also fair to mention the most populated city in the US and the one that had some of the highest protesting wasn't asking people if they attended the protests when they got tested. [6]
I am sure there were other indirect impacts on virus patients like emergency response time and hospital services during the peaceful protests and non-peaceful protests that.
0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEmealSp7Aw
1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z82gf5bk8kM
2: https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/6/12/21288340/police-offi... https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/06/05/8701444...
3: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/06/24/recent-prot...
4: https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/07/us-covid...
5: https://www.twincities.com/2020/06/12/mn-coronavirus-george-... (Published June 12, 2020)
6: https://www.businessinsider.com/nyc-contact-tracers-not-aski...