You are looking backwards to say xyz did not spread the virus when experts truly had no idea from March - May. How did the experts back then have Aug 6 data?

Even back in May the experts told us to stay home and lock down.

There is no way any expert in charge would be okay with mass gatherings in May even if you wore masks. If they were okay with it back in May they would have re-opened the economy a lot sooner.

Only reason why experts kept their mouths shut when protests happened was because they were too scared to speak up about how stupid it was to gather in mass crowds while trying to contain the spread.

Basically they said indirectly that protesting police brutality is more important than containing a pandemic.

But allowing economy to re-open so people could put food on the table was not a political concern for the experts. If you got evicted or starved it wasn't their problem.

You may not have noticed, but we are in August now, and we have more information than we did then, so feel free to explain some of the choices being made in August at this point.

Also, feel free to explain those that continue to point at only the protests, when it is clear they were not the source of large amount of spread. Sure, that is in hindsight, but people are still pointing at them today as if they were the main issue, and completely ignoring those that were the main issue. In fact, many of them still support the biggest sources of virus spread stay open, because it is what it is and such. Feel free to comment on that stuff, all happening in the here and now with current information. Thanks!

All the best.

if you want 'real talk' I will give you real talk.

The 'health officials' would never condone or advise for a Protest March during a pandemic just as they would not during a severe and deadly weather event.

But they realized that humans and their passions, especially around such an egregious display of gov't abuse of authority would be going out in a necessary and WILLFUL display of public disobedience to say that certain abuses to certain communities rise above other dangers. And in fact it is the best way for Protestors to elevate their issue into the consciousness.

So faced with that, what are Public Health officials to do or say, knowing the people ARE rejecting authority in their public disobedience display?

They did NOT support the timing but DID support the cause as a separate public issue, which it is.

They did the RIGHT thing by saying 'if it has to happen, take as many precautions as you can'.

And that is about all they can do and they did it right.



____________

But what is it Trumpsters really want here. What was it Jim Jordan was fishing for with Fauci.

What they want and wanted at the origination of this was for Fauci and public health to say it 'was wrong and danger and should be stopped'. Why? Because that retroactively then gives cover to Trumps heavy handed militaristic tactics used which he has got grief for, and would have justified even harsher measures.

Jim Jordan was trying to trap Fauci into saying "it was wrong. It should not have been allowed' so he could follow with 'and therefore what Trump did was the only answer, as public health demanded we disperse these people and they would not listen any other way'.

-----------

You guys are desperate to try and steer this into false lanes. The way Fauci and Public Health handled it was perfect and no attempts to equivocate it and compare it to protests to re-open or Trump rallies are sincere or accurate.

Really?

Yes really. Thx for proving it.

I support your right to free speech as my kid.

But I will neither condone nor advise you to go out to a large public event right now. during covid to exercise those rights.


Do you see how that works ItShot?

Just because I support the right or action does not mean I am advising or condoning it happening now. And even if i don't want it to happen now, but I have no power to stop it happening, I can still support it but not condone or advise them to do it.

I can't imagine what point you think are countering or making with this but please explain?

The left: I support your right to protest, I won't say how stupid this is (in fact most all of talked about how righteous they are).

The left: Trump, why are you holding an event in the middle of a Pandemic, don't you know people are dying?

The left: People who want to go to work and school are stupid, don't they know people are dying?

fyp

So, if masked outdoor mass gatherings are fine, that means packed outdoor sports stadiums with masks are fine too. Right?

Outdoor concerts ditto.

Those aren't for worthy public health causes that might justify the risk to those who attend, and they aren't generally disruptive enough to keep other people home to reduce the collective risk.

Ya as i thought, a garbage reply.

But again thx for posting your prior post which perfectly proved my point despite you somehow not realizing it.

Again.

Parent : I understand this cause is important and I agree with you it is. And while i support support your right to exercise your free speech as my kid, I will neither condone nor advise you to go out to a large public event right now. during covid to exercise those rights.

Kid : Sorry, but while i understand your view, I am an adult and you cannot stop me. This, to me, is too important.

Parent : I understand. There is nothing more I can do than say stay say, distance where possible. Wear a mask wear possible.


Itshot and others like him : You parents are approving and condoning the kid protesting. Thus that is the same as Trump holding a rally or people going to school in areas that are not meeting the criteria of his own health officials.
Oh the horror and the shame. Can you not see the inconsistency.


Everyone else : No.

I don't know. Organize a riot at the same time and bingo.

i'll give you a very serious reply.

When it comes to exposure risk we are learning there is a hierarchy of better V worse. I'll list it to in terms of better to worse, noting no gatherings are preferred.

- outdoor with the opportunity for spacing and not staying in one place. No common touch surfaces
- outdoor and staying in place but no real common touch surfaces
- outdoor and staying in place with several common touch surfaces
- Indoor but opportunity to space and good air circulation and few common touch surfaces
- indoor, no opportunity to space, no air circulation and lots of common touch surfaces


So when it comes to your masked outdoor packed events that would be at my point 3 above. Not as good as point 1, which was the protests but not as bad as those below.

The keys are 'avoid being in places or around people where air particulate can build up' and common touch points.

I always say think of having a smoker nearby and where and how their smoke builds up to annoy a non smoker. If the non smoker can avoid the smoke mostly, such as at an outdoor protest, then you are good. But a non smoker right beside a smoker at an outdoor concert will likely be bothered especially if the wind is blowing the wrong way due to time in proximity. the virus does not travel as far as cig smoke would, so if you act like you are avoiding smoke you are more than avoiding the virus.

It's not binary. Every activity that involves getting near people carries a risk. We - either as individuals or collectively - have to decide what risks are worth it and how much we should we then do to reduce/manage that risk.

Beats me how any vaguely aware person would think going to packed sports event was worth the risk but then again in the UK (where the government is taking covid very seriously), going to restaurants is being subsidised!. Seems absolutely nuts to me so ymmv.

It's not so much that you approve or condone the protest, it's that the left wanted everything shut down except protest.

I don't get why anyone who even question this statement of how the left has handled this.

Wrong.

You are deliberately avoiding all context and nuance in trying to reverse engineer a point that does not exist with a wrong headed generalization.


Wrong.

He was deliberately avoiding all context and nuance in trying to reverse engineer a point that does not exist with a wrong headed generalization.

Maybe the small fringe. In the UK and I'm pretty sure mostly in the USA as well, it's caused some cognitive discomfort as we have two competing needs.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/poli...-a4459551.html

I am on the left and I believed that protests could be dangerous. Especially the ones where protesters weren't wearing masks.

When the anti-lockdown protests started I thought they were a bad idea especially because people weren't wearing masks. I was stunned when Trump tweeted "Liberate Michigan", "Liberate Minnesota" and "Liberate Wisconsin". Which seemed to be a direct contradiction of what the CDC was espousing. Under his direction.

However, the thing about protests is that when held outdoors the unknown factor was how badly Covid would spread. Would it be like indoor gatherings? Like restaurants and bars?

Turns out with social distancing and wearing masks, protests do not seem to be spreading the virus. At least not much. In places like NY we have seen little to alarm at this point.

Ultimately the problem with peaceful protests is that they are legal. Courts across the country have ruled that they are legal. It is up to the people at the protests to do so safely. Those that don't are in my opinion very stupid.

Indoor events are much different than outdoor protests.

Especially when there can't be social distancing.

And it wasn't only that Trump was holding an event. At that time he was actively promoting not wearing masks as a political statement.

So holding the rally in Tulsa was endangering the lives of his supporters, especially the way it was organized. And not just the supporters but also their immediate families, housemates, and future contacts.

Ultimately the problem with this virus is not just that people catch it but it is how they catch it. The more contact with an infected person, the higher the viral load. The higher the viral load the higher the chances that Covid will cause serious damage and/or death.

And indoor contact in a setting where people are seated next to each other for hours and likely all shouting and expelling the virus repeatedly into the air, is exactly when viral loads will be maximized.

This is the problem with bars (where people have to shout in close proximity to be heard) and churches (where people are either shouting or singing) for hours at a time.

Indoor events & gatherings are also dependent on the ability of the building to ventilate and/or cycle out inside air and replace it with air from outside. In large auditoriums and civic centers like the campaign site in Tulsa, there is virtually no chance that the air can be recycled from outside often enough to be effective.

Ultimately though the choice of attending the event was up to those who chose to go. And as stupid as I think they are, it doesn't matter. They are primarily affecting themselves and their families. And because children are affected at a much different rate than adults, this is much different than the damage addicts and cigarette smokers do to their children. So if they want to kill themselves I don't have a problem with their choice.

And I just want to point out that there really haven't been any more indoor Trump events since Tulsa and Arizona. Because apparently they were so stupid and pointless that the Trump campaign decided not to hold them anymore.
Nobody I know on the left is saying this.

People who want to go to work are not stupid. Unless they want to do it without social distancing and wearing masks.

I am still hoping that I can go back to work. As a professional poker player. But at this point I am disillusioned. Even with Plexiglas dividers and a requirement that players wear masks, it is unlikely I will be able to play in tournaments in the near future. Because most states are not trying very hard to snuff out the virus. So poker tournaments will likely be indoor super-spreading events. And if the casinos are not part of active contact tracing and testing (which to date I haven't seen), even if I weren't to catch it, it would still be a disaster for those states where people returned with the disease.

What I find stupid is a government that knows the infection rate of Covid and how deadly it is and fails to provide basic safety measures to protect workers. There is still no federal mandate to protect workers by providing PPE to them and insuring that they are protected from customers and other workers (by requiring mask wearing and social distancing). Not to mention not providing child care for parents that have children that won't be able to attend school live (watch what happens when communities try)

Some states, bless them, have taken matters in their own hands and have mandated wearing masks indoors and social distancing to reduce the infection rate in their states.

As for schools, I have a son who will be returning to high school in the fall. We are a bit scared as to how this is going to work. It isn't clear that any locale in the US is going to be able to handle opening schools safely. In all likelihood they will attempt to have small classes and set up tents on football fields for outdoor classes. The teachers unions in NY will likely make sure that their teachers are protected. Which will mean that public schools will probably be primarily online. This will be catastrophic for poor people who make up the bulk of the school population.

The LOL part of all of this is the states that have tried to reopen as if everything would be OK and have had their hospital system overrun like it was in NY. Three months later when they should have known that at the very least you can't let that happen.

It isn't a Left thing or a Right thing. It is a human thing. California couldn't be more Left and they have blown it just like Texas, Arizona, Florida, and Texas have.

The failure to pay attention and open up slowly and safely is not political. And by doing it the way we have done it as a country, our economy has been hit harder than necessary and has extended the recovery period dramatically.

That is stupid.

The protest doesn't work if people have other gatherings. One outdoor, disruptive, masked gathering about an issue that aims to save lives at a time.

This is what the american right wing wants to come out and say but most of them don't have the balls to, as you can see in the replies above.

GOP complaints about the protests are stupid and transparently self-serving, but I continue to believe that the bolded is a ridiculous argument. During the time the protests were in full swing in NYC, I didn't observe any reduction in people being out and about. And I don't know a single person in any city where there were significant protests who hid in their house or apartment because of the protests.

The only exception to the above is that curfews obviously affected nighttime behavior for a brief period in some cities.

This is a pretty honest take, which is unusual.

I generally am not in favor of the government suppressing criticism or free expression for any reason, even for public health reasons.

And as I said before, my personal observation is that the protests had a minimal impact on non-protest behavior.

But I know tons of people who would have protested, or would have protested more, or would have protested differently, but for concerns about COVID. Anyone who lives in a big city, especially a big city that was heavily affected by COVID, who says that they don't know anyone whose protest behavior would have been different absent COVID is either very young or lying. That tells me that a lot of people on the left had concerns that the protests would be a vector for spreading the virus, regardless of whether the protests were outside, and regardless of whether the protesters were wearing masks.

I'm glad that it didn't turn out that way, and as I said, if forced to choose between protection of free expression and suppression of speech to achieve some other government objective, I almost always would opt for the former. But anyone who claims that there was no legitimate reason at the time to be concerned about the public health consequences of the protests is being disingenuous.

Were those general curfews or as a result of the protests and were they wide spread?

I think that could be a significant factor in those specific areas as I think night time activity is, in most instances (since churches, work places, schools, etc) are closed were the super spreader events.


in the end, I think the answer of why protests did not cause much virus spread is as I point out upthread. Unless someone sneezes or coughs or sings in your face, particulate matter (your breath) must have a chance to build up in an area. That just does not happen in an outdoor event where people are moving around.

Again i would use the smoking analogy. Unless you have a hyper sensitivity, one exhale from a smoker nearby you outside won't truly irritate a nearby persons airways as he walks by but if he stops near the smoker, then 10 exhalations by that smoker might begin to irritate due to higher concentration in the air.

I'm not sure that I understand the question. Wookie is arguing that the protests were safe in part because they caused people to stay home. I am suggesting that the protests caused a material change in people being out and about only to the extent curfews were imposed because of the protests. The extent of protest-related curfews obviously varied by city, but very few cities had long-lasting protest curfews. And even before the curfews, indoor commercial activity (restaurants, bars, etc.) was greatly restricted or nonexistent in most cities that imposed short term curfews.

I agree with you about why the protests did not contribute much to the spread of the virus.