The protesters sure are being selfish, though, aren’t they? I mean, sure, most protesters are peaceful, but it is pretty obvious that many protests are going to invite violence, looting and police action when the sun sets. Back when there were peaceful protests in Charlottesville, it seemed like there was no end of recrimination against the leaders of the protest on the grounds that they “should have known better,” and yet that sentiment is strangely absent here for these protests.
Today, it is wholly foreseeable that protests will lead to conditions under which COVID will spread, and if we are going to try to shame healthy individuals who choose not to wear a mask while grocery shopping, I think we need to hold the leaders of the protests to an even higher standard, as the potential for superspreading events is so much higher with the protests and the inevitable mayhem that follows.
With governors and mayors attending the protests and some marching with them, I’d say that was the ‘seal of approval’. I read that the governors of Illinois and North Carolina did. Our mayor did and was not masked either. I never heard our mayor or governor say anything on the order of reprimanding the protesters for being in a huge group and not distancing from others. Our governor called out those going to the beach but not those in the streets.
The governor and senators from Minnesota attended the indoor, un-distanced Floyd funeral in a fully packed church. I don’t know if other people are now able to attend full church services in Minnesota now or not, or if all people are able to have large indoor funeral services there.
So political figures who had admonished people for having large parties or for hiking on crowded trails lost credibility with much of the public.
And please note (before it’s taken the wrong way), I’ll say again. The virus doesn’t care what your good intentions are with undistanced large gatherings.
I have not seen any that don’t appear to be great means of spreading the virus. I think the protests are protesting important social issues but I wish they happened when it wasn’t the middle of a pandemic because I think they are going to cause a lot of fatalities. A LOT!!
Yesterday, one of my coworkers complained about the COVID-19 numbers (accurate) being reported for the county where she resides because there have been many cases at correctional institutions (e.g., prisons) and those apparently don’t count for her, especially, she said, because the infected inmates have been moved to isolation units.
Two things that would reduce the risk of COVID-19 spreading at protests are the following: law enforcement officers not using tear gas, and law enforcement officers wearing masks. At some protests, unfortunately, the officers were using tear gas, not wearing masks, or both.
Agreed. I skipped all my graduations for that reason. So did husband, but he did indulge his parents when he got his PhD. My kids’ graduations were an exercise in patience. All of us were relieved when they were over. And I never knew how bad a high school orchestra could sound until I heard the one at my kid’s school. Yikes.
Wow…maybe graduations aren’t about YOU but about those graduating. You sit thru ‘stupefying boring’ events not because you demand entertainment but because you are honoring the graduate.
If I avoided all ‘stupefying boring’ events I’d never attend another funeral, toddler birthday party, I’d wouldn’t have gone to visit relatives deep in dementia. But then, I never thought is was about ME.
It’s not “okay.” No health official or doctor says it’s “okay.” Will all of you please stop saying this? The reason those protests are being tolerated is because shutting them down is like pouring gasoline on a fire. NOT something you want to see happen and even protest-averse authorities know this.
In the major cities in NJ, the police did not take a military approach to crowd control. In these same cities, there was no socalled rioting, and no looting (with caveat that looters are generally not protestors anyway, as friends of mine who live in the worst hit neighborhoods of Minneapolis have continually stressed). but anyway, the majority of protests in NJ (at least, Camden, Newark, and all the towns in my area) have had no teargas, no penned in crowds, no crowded jail cells, and I think this is partly because of the way the city authorities approached this.
I make this point to suggest that cutting down on a militaristic approach also cuts down on the amount of Covid spread.
Even those graduating often admit it’s a bore. Unless you have truly compelling speakers or a fabulously organized ceremony, these rite of passage can be mind-numbing and skipping it in no way diminishes the accomplishment.
But I agree it’s a personal thing, and some people enjoy them. To each his own.
I will leave aside the preposterous claim that the victims of police brutality are responsible for their brutalizers’ abuse.
But it is true that protests will lead to more spreading of the disease, and (probably) more deaths. In the protests in my local area, organizers are demanding (and getting) mask-wearing and social distancing.
Since Memorial Day weekend, the number of patients hospitalized due to coronavirus infection has gone up in at least a dozen states that are tracking hospitalization data.
The states include:
Alaska
Arkansas
Arizona
California
Kentucky
Mississippi
Montana
North Carolina
Oregon
South Carolina
Texas
Utah
“Overall, the new data mark an increase in several states that began in the past couple of weeks. The lag period between when people are exposed to the virus to the time that they may actually get tested and come back with a confirmed infection can be about two to three weeks.”
I wish state officials in the states @emilybee has mentioned would be more forthcoming about where the new cases and new hospitalizations are coming from. In particular, I’d like to understand my own state. The scary increase is mostly coming from southern California, and in particular Los Angeles County. What are these cases? Does anyone from southern California have some light they can shed?
I think my kids disliked their graduations even more than I did. The noisemakers in our ears were the worst part of it, but also the time it takes to go through over 600 names. I did enjoy both their college graduations because they had great speakers and the actual passing out of diplomas was done by the deparments (Tufts) or the Schools (Carnegie Mellon).
Still I do feel sorry for these kids they are certainly not having the senior year they imagined. I think years from now though, they may have fond memories of being the first to have a Zoom graduation or the first drive-in graduation.
I think some of this is luck. My city did not take a militaristic approach and the rioting and looting started very early. The opportunists were ready and waiting.
Same. In our city, criminal opportunists targeted certain businesses scattered around town. It was not just concentrated to businesses along the protest march route.
I agree a lot of it is luck. But any instigator on either side can cause a chain reaction I don’t think this town where I live handled things any better than like locales where things exploded. I don’t think the mayor or the police here could have contained the situation if it had gotten out of hand.
That’s a shame. But that doesn’t sound like “protestors” though I agree they used the pretext of the protests. Still, that wouldn’t entail as much or any of the crowds pushed into small areas, teargas, and crowded jail cells, which would be the most likely Covid spreaders, which was my (thread-connected) point.