Will these protests likely increase the spread of Covid-19? Yeah.

However, trying to compare these protests to a desire to have a haircut or eat at a restaurant is pretty silly.

is ending police brutality and being against racism more important than going back to work? Of course it is. but one can want both. the inconsistency in saying 10k people in a couple block radius wont spread covid-19, after a week before saying 25 people in one block radius will spread covid-19 to everyone including grandma in idaho is a little bit disingenuous

I haven't heard anyone say that "10k people in a couple block radius won't spread Covid-19". There's universal acknowledgement that the protests will have an effect on the spread of Covid-19.

Despite this risk, it has been necessary to protest. There is/was no other way to realistically go about it. No changes would have happened should we had protested on a Zoom call.

i do agree protest is necessary to fix police brutality and racism in policing policy. those in charge do not listen to polite requests to stopping using brutality. especially in (D) strongholds like Minneapolis.

we did get told the protests were not risky for covid-19 spread
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/05/health/health-care-open-letter-protests-coronavirus-trnd/index.html

"However, as public health advocates, we do not condemn these gatherings as risky for COVID-19 transmission. We support them as vital to the national public health and to the threatened health specifically of Black people in the United States. We can show that support by facilitating safest protesting practices without detracting from demonstrators' ability to gather and demand change. This should not be confused with a permissive stance on all gatherings, particularly protests against stay-home orders."

this quite neatly states that protests are not risky, but you should not protest to go back to work

From that same article: "Prepare for an increased number of infections in the days following a protest," the letter says. "Provide increased access to testing and care for people in the affected communities, especially when they or their family members put themselves at risk by attending protests."

They're aware that these protests run the risk, and really the guarantee, that it'll increase the spread of Covid-19. They're saying that despite this, the necessity to protest supersedes these concerns and that they won't condemn the protests in the vain that so many others are.

so they say in one sentence the protests themselves are deemed as “not risky for COVID-19 transmission” but later that “we should expect an increase days after a protest”. which is it?

of course, this is semantics. anyone who has been paying attention expects an increase after large gatherings of any sort. but if it doesn’t..

anyways ive been 100% consistent in support of the protests. fortunately we are seeing a mostly positive effect on changing an affliction in America that most Americans want remedied. i just dont want science to be further diluted by politics. then again I work in math and science to an certain extent so i’m just being selfish

sjws in the medical field and government supporting the protests is the exact demographic i have a problem with, not the protesters themselves

This isn't a hard concept. We are in a different time now, so the standards are different.

there's been news for a while now of a second wave coming as restrictions are eased and these protests are going to make it nasty

The full quote is that they won't "condemn" them as risky. Which, to me, is within a specific context. They're not saying that by not condemning them as "risky" that therefore there is no risk. What they're saying is that as medical professionals they're speaking out against people who want to use public health concerns to shut the protests down and keep them from happening. The people who are condemning the protests out of concerns over Covid-19 do so through a specific narrative, which includes a desire to see the protests stopped and prohibited.



Can you elaborate?