Thursday, July 9, 2020

Why protests aren't as dangerous for spreading coronavirus as you might think

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/18/anti-racism-protests-coronavirus-rise-covid-19-cases


The evidence is becoming clear that wearing a mask can substantially lower the risk of spread and severity of illness. We are seeing more and more masks worn by protesters. A second feature of gatherings that affects the spread of the virus is whether they happen outdoors or indoors. Here, too, research suggests that outdoor activities are much safer than indoor ones.

Finally, although this is more preliminary, evidence suggests that if you’re going to be in a crowd, a mobile one is better than a stationary one. None of these three aspects will protect you from infection definitively – but together they offer a modest level of risk reduction. And compared with the risk of catching Covid-19 that is present in many jobs or other activities, such as working in meat-packing plants, outdoor protests are likely to be much safer– especially if we carry out testing, which can quickly reveal if the virus is spreading among protesters, as Massachusetts has done recently.

2 comments :

  1. There's no good evidence for any of these assertions. None. It's all observational data based on "Well there was a gathering and no one got sick so..." This has gone political. If people knew that the protests were spreading illness they'd have to speak against them and that's anathema to the SJW crowd. So instead, a single rally in Tulsa turns out to be worse than a dozen mass protests. Boggles the mind.

    ReplyDelete
  2. there were objections raised the article notes was that the dire warnings didn't come true

    ReplyDelete

ANONYMOUS COMMENTS WILL NOT BE POSTED!
please use either your real name or a pseudonym.