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Quoted from a letter from 1,000 health professionals on the virus and protests [0] >However, as public health advocates, we do not condemn these gatherings as

Quoted from a letter from 1,000 health professionals on the virus and protests [0] >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." Why are many taking this position? One can recognize that the protests are risking an increase in virus transmission while still recognizing that it is a risk worth taking. Don't tell us there is no risk from these protests, but there is a risk from stay-at-home protests. The virus is not selective of political beliefs. It completely ruins the credibility of many health professionals. Almost no one's opinions will be swayed either way if they acknowledged that the protests do carry a real risk of transmission. [0] https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/05/health/health-care-open-letter-protests-coronavirus-trnd/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/05/health/health-care-open-lette...

DennisAleynikov 6y ago
fake scientific consensus that fits political consensus... huh who could have known this was a partisan issue not about health
- WalterBright 6y ago
  There's been a lot of talk in the last few years about "believing in science" pushed by politicians. However, there is a long history of science being "adjusted" to fit political agendas. Just one example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism
twblalock 6y ago
Their statements make sense if you realize that public health experts have not been speaking to the American people the way scientists would speak to an informed audience. They were being political because they didn't think the people could handle nuance. They oversimplified the explanation of the science and pushed for lockdowns at all costs with no exceptions. Now, by admitting there are exceptions, they reveal that they were not being straight with us all along.
- throwmehaweh 6y ago
  It’s the epitome of hypocrisy. How could anyone take them seriously now that they’ve shown to be complete frauds? Is it any wonder that half the country doesn’t trust the government lockdowns? “Stay inside”, “don’t gather in groups”, “cancel your wedding”, “wear a mask during sex”, but oh hey, it’s OK to go downtown and riot, burn down buildings, and throw bricks at the police.
  - gruez 6y ago
    >but oh hey, it’s OK to go downtown and riot, burn down buildings, and throw bricks at the police. This is not a good faith depiction of what the protesters are doing.
    - shibeouya 6y ago
      It absolutely is. There are hundreds of videos of it, don't ignore them because they don't fit your little narrative.
  - turndown 6y ago
    No one will take you seriously as a new user with the name "throwmehaweh". If you actually believe the things in your post, I recommend you use your actual account to state your beliefs. Your description of the protests as going downtown to riot is the type of misrepresentation we expect from children, not adults.
    - chipperyman573 6y ago
      The account someone posts something from has nothing to do with the validity of their argument.
      - turndown 6y ago
        Sure, I don't disagree with that, but when the name is a "throwaway", it is a new account, and its only posts are half explanations of simplifications or just outright lies on highly divisive topics, I have no issue connecting the dots.
ska 6y ago
Don't tell us there is no risk from these protests, but there is a risk from stay-at-home protests. I don't think that is what they actually said, though agree it could have been articulated better.
jpindar 6y ago
They're taking that position because if they don't, people will call them racist.
- 0xy 6y ago
  In other words, they're putting politics above science and should be discredited in kind.
covidSurvivor19 6y ago
Because this is an election year, so get back into place, and either support the engineered chaos or stay at home while it happens. /s <- unnecesary but these days there is so little critical thought and reading skills that you never know
caconym_ 6y ago
Where'd they "tell us there is no risk from these protests"? The letter you linked explicitly advises us to "prepare for an increased number of infections in the days following a protest [and] 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 just seem to think protesting America's rampant institutionalized police brutality is more worthy than protesting the lockdowns themselves, and I can't say I disagree, but even if I did I wouldn't be able to say they're being inconsistent, because they aren't. They just haven't stuck their heads in the sand of relativism.
- manfredo 6y ago
  On average the police kill ~80 unarmed people each year, of any race [1]. By comparison, 40 million people are unemployed as a result of the pandemic and lockdown. Certainly, the impact of someone unjustly killed is vastly larger than that of someone laid off or furloughed. But is it 500,000 times greater? These are different issues. They aren't equivalent, but they're comparable at least. Pointing out the inconsistency here isn't "sticking one's head in the sand of relativism." 1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/polic...
  - Kevin_S 6y ago
    They are not only protesting the killing of unarmed black people, but all aspects of the structural bias of American police and the justice system against blacks. These biases affect much more than the extreme cases of the killing of unarmed black people.
  - kadoban 6y ago
    There is _far_ more harm in unjust policing than is counted in deaths per year.
    - empthought 6y ago
      Same for coronavirus and for economic hardship.
monktastic1 6y ago
It doesn't say they're not risky, just that they don't condemn them as risky (i.e., for being risky). At least, that's how I read it.
- zarathustreal 6y ago
  Kinda disgusting how personal beliefs can influence professionals, no?
  - robbrown451 6y ago
    Why? Would you prefer that because someone is "professional" they discard all their personal ethics?
    - sintaxi 6y ago
      That is the very definition of professional.
      - braythwayt 6y ago
        So then, if I am a “professional” software developer, and my employer asks me to put a secret back-door in some code to be shipped to consumers... I should say nothing, because I’m a “professional?” Or what if I’m doing renovations, and someone asks me to make something I know to be unsafe. I point that out, but they insist... Again, do I just do what they ask because, “professional?” I suspect you are conflating “professional” with “mercenary.” To me, being a professional means approaching my work with a sense of ethics. In fact, I suggest to you that saying nothing in these cases is also injecting ethics into my work, only it is my personal investment in “The Status Quo.” You can’t escape ethics, you can only support the existing structure by pretending you are above petty “ethics” and “politics.”
        SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
        What you certainly don't do, if you're doing renovations, is sign off on something that you know to be unsafe because the people who built it are fighting systemic racism.
HuShifang 6y ago
Public health is concerned with the health of the public -- which includes health issues induced by stress, poor nutrition, pollution, etc. (Ever notice how African Americans' life expectancy is much lower than that of white Americans? Public health experts have. They study it.) So, in this case, they're calculating that making strides against inequality will be worth the cost of more COVID-19 cases.
- achenatx 6y ago
  there are no calculations being done. They believe in the cause therefore it is justified. They dont believe in the cause of the other side (freedom of movement/commerce) and therefore dont believe they are justified. They are pretending to base it on science, when it is just another political opinion.
  - TeaDrunk 6y ago
    "there are no calculations being done" Calculations on what, exactly? There are calculations done on how police brutality and systemtic racism contribute to decreased quality of life for black americans. It's considered widely acknowledged within the healthcare industry that black americans have statistically significant health disparities compared to other races, and that additionally it is statistically known that the covid19 shut down primarily affect the service industry, which hits people of color disproportionately towards white people (as people of color are less likely to have jobs that can be worked from home).
    - rhino369 6y ago
      Conceivably, you could do some sort of analysis on how much systemic racism has an impact on black lives as a measure of year of life lost, etc. But you'd also have to do the same for the 3 months they've taken from everyone else due to lockdowns. Until they do that sort of thing, its politics not a social science.
      - TeaDrunk 6y ago
Shivetya 6y ago
Why are they taking this position. Simple, it cost them nothing to do so all the while letting them claim they understand. This is nothing more than #hashtag politics. A do nothing stance because no risk is taken So yes of course there is risk. However as with anything political no honest discussion is permitted. This is why people calling out the violence and looting are being hushed or intimidated because politicians don't want to talk about that side of the issue. The same politicians who have been building up the police state in blue cities for generations.
- dasudasu 6y ago
  There is much more risk in not taking that stance in the current environment.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
meritt 6y ago
> Don't tell us there is no risk from these protests, but there is a risk from stay-at-home protests. The difference is the stay-at-home protesters overwhelmingly didn't wear masks [1] and the BLM protesters are overwhelmingly wearing masks [2]. Hong Kong has proven it's possible to have massive protests while wearing masks and not being vectors of infection. [3] [1] https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/15/835250693/michigan-stay-at-home-order-prompts-honking-traffic-jam-protest https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0... [2] https://www.foxnews.com/politics/protesters-aim-to-bring-one-million-to-march-on-washington-in-largest-blm-demonstration-yet https://www.foxnews.com/politics/protesters-aim-to-bring-one... [3] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/21/world/asia/coronavirus-hong-kong-protests.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/21/world/asia/coronavirus-ho...
- e_y_ 6y ago
  It's worth noting that Hong Kong has very few coronavirus cases, and most/all the current known cases are from travelers who are being closely monitored. The risk there is much thus lower than places that have already have tens of thousands of cases, although it also depends on how long the protests continue and whether an outbreak can be caught early through testing.
- smsm42 6y ago
  I've watched dozens of videos from the protests, and while some people are wearing masks, many do not, and of those that do, many routinely remove them - e.g. to chant, or wear them only on part of the face, or even move them to the neck or forehead for extended times. A lot of them frequently readjust them with their hands - without washing the hands of course, which kinda defeats the whole purpose. Regular masks aren't super-efficient at long-time mass close contact anyway - they are lowering risk when you are walking on the street passing another person, with contact time measuring in seconds, but I don't think they would provide significant defense when staying in close contact for hours, especially while moving around, running, chanting, etc. Even less goes for homemade cloth masks, which many are wearing, which provide even less protection than surgical ones.
- snickerbockers 6y ago
  Then why were laws put into place to shut down everything if it's okay to participate in large-scale group activities as long as you're wearing a mask? And more importantly, why were Americans being told specifically not to wear masks during the opening months of the pandemic?
GuB-42 6y ago
Also in the letter > Prepare for an increased number of infections in the days following a protest. 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. The sentence "we do not condemn these gatherings as risky for COVID-19 transmission" is a bit ambiguous, maybe on purpose. The idea is that they won't use the risk of COVID-19 transmission as a argument to disapprove of the gatherings. They cannot say the gatherings are safe, because they aren't, but they also want to support them. That's how you get such an ambiguous message. I would have preferred a clearer stance as well like "We, as health professionals, recognize the risks, however, blah blah blah. You can minimize these risks by doing blah blah blah".
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  A clearer stance would help, but I feel like there's a fundamental problem with taking any stance. For public health authorities to affirmatively endorse political causes severely compromises their authority as neutral arbiters.
  - GuB-42 6y ago
    It is not "public health authorities". It is not a message from the government or any organization in a position of power. Instead, it is an open letter from health professionals. They express themselves both as medical experts and as human beings, so having a political stance is no problem, as long as they make it clear which part of them is speaking. I think it is not clear enough in their letter, but in my opinion, there is absolutely nothing wrong with their message.
    - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
      They're not expressing their support for the protests as a personal or political question separate from their medical expertise. The letter says that "white supremacy is a lethal public health issue", racism is "the paramount public health problem", and the protests are "vital to the national public health". This is beyond simply not making it clear enough; they're deliberately invoking their medical expertise as a source of authority for their political judgments.
smsm42 6y ago
> However, as public health advocates, we do not condemn these gatherings as risky for COVID-19 transmission That's a shining example of weasel speak. They don't explicitly say it's not risky - because that would be plain lying, it is obviously risky - but they are saying they are not condemning it as risky. Which most people would take as implying it's not actually risky - even though they are not saying that. They are saying that the protest is too important to take health considerations into account, but they are reluctant to speak plainly and tell people there's risk but they should be adult and choose to manage the risks themselves and maybe neglect small risk in order to achieve bigger thing. Because that's what they spent last several months - and in fact, many years before - trying to convince people there's no way they can be treated as adults and just given the information and left to manage the risks by themselves. Just in this case, our betters had decided the COVID risk is less important than protesting - so it's OK for us. But only in cases which are approved by our betters. If you want to protest something else - it's still risky as heck and there they can fully condemn.
- AmericanChopper 6y ago
  It really just makes it undeniable how political the official advice and accompanying commentary is. The slew of new rules put in place for BLM protests are incredibly dubious, from both a legal and safety perspective. It’s not up to the government to decide what speech or cause for assembly is important, and health officials should not have their risk assessments swayed by political considerations.
  - xphilter 6y ago
    What new rules specifically? And what rules were not in place for the armed all-white protests in Michigan, for instance?
    - drusepth 6y ago
      For example, countries permitting residents to "gather in groups of 12", or "protest in groups of up to 100". For example, https://cchealth.org/press-releases/2020/0602-Businesses-Reopening.php https://cchealth.org/press-releases/2020/0602-Businesses-Reo... Why create specialized rules for protests that allow an order of magnitude more people to gather than those allowed in a "close cohort" gathering?
RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
> It completely ruins the credibility of many health professionals. Not just the credibility of health professionals, but all professionals. The big thing will be climate change. This will be brought up to say that technical professionals giving their advice are just partisan hacks who don’t care about the economy and people’s livelihoods, but do care about their virtue signaling.
watersb 6y ago
Systemic inequality is a component of the clinical presentation of the covid-19 pandemic in the United States. Black Americans have been dying from the disease at twice the rate, as a group, than the population in general. In my home state, half of the reported cases are among Native American communities. Limited access to healthcare is not a theoretical challenge. The link between historical injustice manifests every day in the pandemic crisis. And the nature of this virus - rapid, asymptomatic contagion - means that any vulnerable population can be a source of ongoing infection in the general population. Never has the bond in our common good been more clear. So sure, there are political positions to be taken in how best to move forward, but the virus doesn't care.
- tenpies 6y ago
  > Limited access to healthcare is not a theoretical challenge. The link between historical injustice manifests every day in the pandemic crisis. And the nature of this virus - rapid, asymptomatic contagion - means that any vulnerable population can be a source of ongoing infection in the general population. Why are we assuming it's systemic access to healthcare and not say Vitamin D deficiency? Healthcare access is worst in Africa and yet their numbers and outcomes are exponentially better. So what are the differences between African communities in the US and the ones in Africa? It just seems so politically American to assume that it must be evil systemic racism anytime a population does not do as well as white people, and yet not a peep is uttered when white people are lapped by another population.
  - toasterlovin 6y ago
    Ideologies do not reward the search for truth, they punish it.
scarmig 6y ago
They're being flagrantly irresponsible. If nothing else, messaging and public trust are key parts of any epidemic response. Right now, a conservative might look at this letter and come away with the impression that this is a case of quarantine for thee but not for me. An opinion that wouldn't be unjustified: can you imagine them doing the same thing to provide cover for abortion protests? The right to religious gatherings? It burns goodwill and trust, making significant public health interventions harder both now and in the future. The reason, of course, is that ignoring the potential for disease transmission in these protests is necessary to stay in the good graces of woke circles.
- noad 6y ago
  Or maybe there are just bigger problems than the virus right now.
  - scarmig 6y ago
    Your comment is a case in point: the takeaway the general public will have from this letter is that the virus doesn't really matter, and you should feel free to disregard it if you can come up with a vaguely plausible reason why your particular circumstances mean you should be exempt from caring about it. Which we kind of were at anyway, but now public health figures have given their signoff on that interpretation.
    - hrktb 6y ago
      The virus doesn’t seem to matter for police forces either, spraying tear gas as salutation and forcing anyone at reach to burst out as much body fluid as they possibly can. TBH from the outside it seems that whatever the death count is it never really mattered to a majority of people in the US.
    - noad 6y ago
      The CDC already failed us. Public health figures have been wrong repeatedly at the local, state, and national level. I understand people's frustration with them, and I understand why people don't care about their "signoffs" on what we're allowed to do, especially when the guidelines are completely nonsensical like in California. Where are the free clinics? Where are the free tests? Where is the free quarantine hotel room? None of that, instead we just get chided for being stupid and uncooperative by leaders. This is completely unacceptable, they failed us, not the other way around. And the police might actually kill me today, unlike the virus.
dehrmann 6y ago
Political statements like that can really hurt their credibility as public health officials, especially if increased transmission from protests causes them to call for another lockdown. Either say large, outdoor gatherings like this are risky or they aren't (or maybe they're just slightly risky). Don't get into "protesting these things is ok, protesting these isn't."
- joegahona 6y ago
  Exactly. If all of these civilians where smashed together in Trump rallies or concerts or sporting events, would they have the same petition circulating?
rayiner 6y ago
Right. It’s not the job of public health officials to make judgments about what risks are worthwhile. If we can protest with acceptable levels of risk, we should’ve been able to keep more of the economy operational with acceptable levels of risk. The advice shouldn’t differ because public health officials think social justice is more important than the economy.
an_opabinia 6y ago
> The virus is not selective of political beliefs I'm not really this much of a hack, so forgive me, because what you are saying is true in the most literal sense. But if you believe in capitalism, a political system, the virus will treat you better if you're rich -- a beneficiary of that system. It's not as reductive as better health care. As a rich person, you can easily stay at home without working, infinitely. The federal government's most effective anti-COVID intervention was actually saving the markets, it's the one promise the government delivered. And the biggest parts of that story are (1) that our society is oriented to protect capitalists, so of course there will be an effective and fast intervention nowadays that protects equities, like a five trillion dollar equities buying scheme, and (2) you can go ahead and sell your stocks to the government now, essentially, and live off this largess. You can go on ordering shit from Amazon and working from home for Facebook. You can shelter in place pretty much indefinitely. We're not even talking millionaires, we're talking about middle class people, programmers, health officials, pretty much everyone on this forum working for more than the 75th percentile income. This point of view doesn't even require the bullshit of categorizing your preferred kind of protestor. The reopen people, the peaceful protestor, even the looters all share a common political belief - let me illuminate it for you. None of those teenagers looting Best Buy have trusts, they don't have savings or anything that goes "up" and lets them or their parents stay home when the government props up the stock market. It's not as reductive as simply being poor (i.e. being on the wrong side of the system), or even being bored or angry. It's in opposition to the system. Imagine 18-78 years of "fuck you, you have to choose to die for money or die from homelessness and starvation" every single day. It's not just the pandemic times, though that exacerbates it immensely, for millions of people. It's like being born directly into jail. You'd go blow up a Best Buy too! You'd show up at the state capitol threatening people with guns! Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren lost the Democratic primary, to the relief of basically every venture capitalist I know. But a series of idiosyncratic votes, as should be obvious to everyone, isn't the end-all be-all refutation to socialist politics, even temporarily. And just because you don't hear political leaders or even ordinary people taking the leap and asking, "Well is there a point to looting a modern art store?" doesn't mean that there isn't a point. It might be political suicide, send along the down votes, but I can sympathize with people who are mad as hell about not being given the resources to shelter at home as comfortably as rich people do while simultaneously being told to shut the fuck up about it. The only solution to that is straightforward socialism, which lost in the primary but did not lose in the hearts and minds of millions of people. It means allowing stocks to drop, IPOs to dry up, tech workers get laid off, and people being paid to stay at home long past July and not work -- all ideas verbatim rejected by Republicans, venture capitalists and seemingly most on this forum. Socialist politics are stronger than ever. That health care officials may sympathize with those politics -- that it's a very specific capitalist system we have that is culpable for brutalizing minorities and failing to protect many people from a pandemic -- isn't surprising; they're smart people who have a very special perspective on what suffering really means. They, like many peaceful protestors, want to show solidarity with losers of the capitalism system without appealing to violence or coercion in the pursuit of an abstract goal like declining infection rates or whatever.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
empath75 6y ago
There’s a lot of risk for these protests but I do feel like protesting for some issue other than ‘end the lockdown’ is more justifiable than just protesting the lockdown itself. Even if it were an anti-abortion protest, for example — something I am ideologically opposed to — I wouldn’t stand in the way of a group that wanted to do that.
- dustinmoris 6y ago
  The lockdown will be directly responsible for an estimated death of 40 million people globally due to famine, hunger, job losses and lots of other directly related issues. Is 40M people not good enough to protest against the lockdown itself?
  - empath75 6y ago
    Source?
Fellshard 6y ago
The analysis is quite simple: basic cynicism. Experts are incentivized to maximize results corresponding to their field /in isolation/ - with little or no trade-offs considered. This preserves their reputation, and allows them to recommend within the bounds of their knowledge. If an expert recommends religious institutions continue to hold only remote meetings, they are not going to suffer any consequences, both directly and as a response. Anger over such a decision will usually be directed to the politicians, instead. If an expert recommends these protests be halted due to risk, they themselves will likely be affected, and charged with racism and bigotry, likely - in our current environment - leading to total destruction of both professional and personal lives. The calculus is quite simple, and absolutely dangerous.
- jsperson 6y ago
  Thank you for stating this. I’ve spent a nontrivial amount of time recently on self analysis. To wit: am I racist because I find the doublespeak regarding quarantine/protests to be entirely illogical. Asking these questions on social media is a genuine reputation risk.
- chasd00 6y ago
  but reality doesn't care. when people start falling sick, and the curve steepens while the cries of "why weren't we warned!" become loud and clear what's going to be these "experts" answer then? Surely they've thought that far ahead. right? Or maybe the lockdowns were a massive over reaction and this is a subtle acknowledgment.
  - Fellshard 6y ago
    Regardless which way the cookie crumbles, the damage to their reputations is done. Neither outcome is good, though one is obviously far more desirable in the short term: the one with less resulting death. Though, if they have lost credibility the next time this rolls 'round...
joegahona 6y ago
> This letter is signed by 1,288 public health professionals, infectious diseases professionals, and community stakeholders. Would love a breakdown of this. "Community stakeholders" is meaningless. The letter reads like something you'd see on change.org.
- 0xy 6y ago
  That's a good idea, so they can be utterly discredited and assigned the proportional blame for the ensuing deaths.
g8tor 6y ago
It seems like there's an epidemic of fear & fake righteousness in the US. People cowed into taking counterfactual emotive positions by fear of lynching at the hands of hostile commentariat, now possessed of actual foot soldiers in the streets, itself too scared, or perhaps too drunk on its imagined righteousness, to do anything else. As someone wise once said the greatest misfortune in the world is to have an enemy. It's sad to see US with so many enemies seemingly within. Like a body racked with disease. An epidemic of emotive counterfactual fake narratives cannot be a good thing for society. I believe current events indicate this. Providing evidence narrative corruption can spill over into disastrous physical consequences. There must be a cure. Counter-narratives must be deployed. Discourse reform form must occur. Positive censorship and propaganda must be empowered to act like an immune system for the mass consciousness. A media complicit in propagating these divisive lies that fakejustify violence is a media that invites regulation. Does America have the will & the courage to heal itself?
nyczomg 6y ago
Crazy conspiracy theory incoming... What if the Illuminati or whoever runs society just figured out the fastest way to get tons of young people infected to speed up the herd immunity process??
wutbrodo 6y ago
Yup, public health institutions disgraced themselves in the beginning of the crisis[1], but it turns out this isn't just an unfortunate case of institutional rot: it apparently runs deep, throughout the individuals involved in the field. I'm a big supporter of the role experts play in a functioning society, but public health experts are yet another group setting their credibility on fire to provide momentary warmth to a political objective. [1] many of them have done so for years, for anyone paying attention
mns 6y ago
This is not just the US, I just realised that in Germany, Munich, there were some "rednecks" and weird people protesting the Corona measures. So they closed down a 100 acres area where Oktoberfest takes place for a 1000 person protest (that's how much they were allowed). Now I live in that area and on that weekend we were stopped by the police while going shopping, and they were stopping everyone to make sure you're not going to the demo. They had more security forces there than people at the protests. These protests are mostly stupid and fringe, and I am really grateful to be living in a country like Germany (not a german) that from my point of view handled the situation quite well as you don't have many reasons to protest the Corona measures here. Now, this weekend they had a protest here to support the ones in the US, and we just had 25000 people in a smaller place to show their solidarity. How is that going to help people's trust in the decisions taken by authorities, it just makes everything political.
- hef19898 6y ago
  At least in Munich, the latest protests are around a time everything is opening up again anyways. The anti-lockdown protest happened, more or less, during the hight of the lockdown. So totally different circumstances.
  - mns 6y ago
    The one where police stopped us from going grocery shopping was exactly one week before, so it's not that far back. It's still not allowed to have mass protests, no matter the cause.
    - hef19898 6y ago
      You mentioned to be stopped by police and to be told to not go to the demo. Theydidn't stop you from going shopping, at least you didn't say so earlier. Seems to be two different things. All assemblies have to be registered upfront, regardless of COVID-19. SO if the assembly isn't permited, police will break it up. Happened more than once in the last weeks, didn't it? So I doubt your last point.
buboard 6y ago
In my country, the church protested that holy gatherings won't spread COVID because it is graced by god. What these scientists are doing is on an equivalent level of medieval stupidity. It's really sad to read this , and even more sad to see the media reproducing it without criticism. Outbreaks in mass gatherings are responsible for entire epidemics in italy, spain and germany. I can only imagine what will happen in a month, when racial minorities start accusing each other for the scale of the second epidemic.
Traubenfuchs 6y ago
This utterly ridiculous doublethink statement is a big present for real racists. Because it is blatantly racist and elitist.

DennisAleynikov 6y ago

fake scientific consensus that fits political consensus... huh who could have known this was a partisan issue not about health

WalterBright 6y ago
There's been a lot of talk in the last few years about "believing in science" pushed by politicians. However, there is a long history of science being "adjusted" to fit political agendas. Just one example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism

twblalock 6y ago

Their statements make sense if you realize that public health experts have not been speaking to the American people the way scientists would speak to an informed audience. They were being political because they didn't think the people could handle nuance. They oversimplified the explanation of the science and pushed for lockdowns at all costs with no exceptions. Now, by admitting there are exceptions, they reveal that they were not being straight with us all along.

throwmehaweh 6y ago
It’s the epitome of hypocrisy. How could anyone take them seriously now that they’ve shown to be complete frauds? Is it any wonder that half the country doesn’t trust the government lockdowns? “Stay inside”, “don’t gather in groups”, “cancel your wedding”, “wear a mask during sex”, but oh hey, it’s OK to go downtown and riot, burn down buildings, and throw bricks at the police.
- gruez 6y ago
  >but oh hey, it’s OK to go downtown and riot, burn down buildings, and throw bricks at the police. This is not a good faith depiction of what the protesters are doing.
  - shibeouya 6y ago
    It absolutely is. There are hundreds of videos of it, don't ignore them because they don't fit your little narrative.
- turndown 6y ago
  No one will take you seriously as a new user with the name "throwmehaweh". If you actually believe the things in your post, I recommend you use your actual account to state your beliefs. Your description of the protests as going downtown to riot is the type of misrepresentation we expect from children, not adults.
  - chipperyman573 6y ago
    The account someone posts something from has nothing to do with the validity of their argument.
    - turndown 6y ago
      Sure, I don't disagree with that, but when the name is a "throwaway", it is a new account, and its only posts are half explanations of simplifications or just outright lies on highly divisive topics, I have no issue connecting the dots.

ska 6y ago

Don't tell us there is no risk from these protests, but there is a risk from stay-at-home protests. I don't think that is what they actually said, though agree it could have been articulated better.

jpindar 6y ago

They're taking that position because if they don't, people will call them racist.

0xy 6y ago
In other words, they're putting politics above science and should be discredited in kind.

covidSurvivor19 6y ago

Because this is an election year, so get back into place, and either support the engineered chaos or stay at home while it happens. /s <- unnecesary but these days there is so little critical thought and reading skills that you never know

caconym_ 6y ago

Where'd they "tell us there is no risk from these protests"? The letter you linked explicitly advises us to "prepare for an increased number of infections in the days following a protest [and] 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 just seem to think protesting America's rampant institutionalized police brutality is more worthy than protesting the lockdowns themselves, and I can't say I disagree, but even if I did I wouldn't be able to say they're being inconsistent, because they aren't. They just haven't stuck their heads in the sand of relativism.

manfredo 6y ago
On average the police kill ~80 unarmed people each year, of any race [1]. By comparison, 40 million people are unemployed as a result of the pandemic and lockdown. Certainly, the impact of someone unjustly killed is vastly larger than that of someone laid off or furloughed. But is it 500,000 times greater? These are different issues. They aren't equivalent, but they're comparable at least. Pointing out the inconsistency here isn't "sticking one's head in the sand of relativism." 1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/polic...
- Kevin_S 6y ago
  They are not only protesting the killing of unarmed black people, but all aspects of the structural bias of American police and the justice system against blacks. These biases affect much more than the extreme cases of the killing of unarmed black people.
- kadoban 6y ago
  There is _far_ more harm in unjust policing than is counted in deaths per year.
  - empthought 6y ago
    Same for coronavirus and for economic hardship.

monktastic1 6y ago

It doesn't say they're not risky, just that they don't condemn them as risky (i.e., for being risky). At least, that's how I read it.

zarathustreal 6y ago
Kinda disgusting how personal beliefs can influence professionals, no?
- robbrown451 6y ago
  Why? Would you prefer that because someone is "professional" they discard all their personal ethics?
  - sintaxi 6y ago
    That is the very definition of professional.
    - braythwayt 6y ago
      So then, if I am a “professional” software developer, and my employer asks me to put a secret back-door in some code to be shipped to consumers... I should say nothing, because I’m a “professional?” Or what if I’m doing renovations, and someone asks me to make something I know to be unsafe. I point that out, but they insist... Again, do I just do what they ask because, “professional?” I suspect you are conflating “professional” with “mercenary.” To me, being a professional means approaching my work with a sense of ethics. In fact, I suggest to you that saying nothing in these cases is also injecting ethics into my work, only it is my personal investment in “The Status Quo.” You can’t escape ethics, you can only support the existing structure by pretending you are above petty “ethics” and “politics.”
      - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
        What you certainly don't do, if you're doing renovations, is sign off on something that you know to be unsafe because the people who built it are fighting systemic racism.

HuShifang 6y ago

Public health is concerned with the health of the public -- which includes health issues induced by stress, poor nutrition, pollution, etc. (Ever notice how African Americans' life expectancy is much lower than that of white Americans? Public health experts have. They study it.) So, in this case, they're calculating that making strides against inequality will be worth the cost of more COVID-19 cases.

achenatx 6y ago
there are no calculations being done. They believe in the cause therefore it is justified. They dont believe in the cause of the other side (freedom of movement/commerce) and therefore dont believe they are justified. They are pretending to base it on science, when it is just another political opinion.
- TeaDrunk 6y ago
  "there are no calculations being done" Calculations on what, exactly? There are calculations done on how police brutality and systemtic racism contribute to decreased quality of life for black americans. It's considered widely acknowledged within the healthcare industry that black americans have statistically significant health disparities compared to other races, and that additionally it is statistically known that the covid19 shut down primarily affect the service industry, which hits people of color disproportionately towards white people (as people of color are less likely to have jobs that can be worked from home).
  - rhino369 6y ago
    Conceivably, you could do some sort of analysis on how much systemic racism has an impact on black lives as a measure of year of life lost, etc. But you'd also have to do the same for the 3 months they've taken from everyone else due to lockdowns. Until they do that sort of thing, its politics not a social science.
    - TeaDrunk 6y ago

Shivetya 6y ago

Why are they taking this position. Simple, it cost them nothing to do so all the while letting them claim they understand. This is nothing more than #hashtag politics. A do nothing stance because no risk is taken So yes of course there is risk. However as with anything political no honest discussion is permitted. This is why people calling out the violence and looting are being hushed or intimidated because politicians don't want to talk about that side of the issue. The same politicians who have been building up the police state in blue cities for generations.

dasudasu 6y ago
There is much more risk in not taking that stance in the current environment.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

meritt 6y ago

> Don't tell us there is no risk from these protests, but there is a risk from stay-at-home protests. The difference is the stay-at-home protesters overwhelmingly didn't wear masks [1] and the BLM protesters are overwhelmingly wearing masks [2]. Hong Kong has proven it's possible to have massive protests while wearing masks and not being vectors of infection. [3] [1] https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/15/835250693/michigan-stay-at-home-order-prompts-honking-traffic-jam-protest https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0... [2] https://www.foxnews.com/politics/protesters-aim-to-bring-one-million-to-march-on-washington-in-largest-blm-demonstration-yet https://www.foxnews.com/politics/protesters-aim-to-bring-one... [3] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/21/world/asia/coronavirus-hong-kong-protests.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/21/world/asia/coronavirus-ho...

e_y_ 6y ago
It's worth noting that Hong Kong has very few coronavirus cases, and most/all the current known cases are from travelers who are being closely monitored. The risk there is much thus lower than places that have already have tens of thousands of cases, although it also depends on how long the protests continue and whether an outbreak can be caught early through testing.
smsm42 6y ago
I've watched dozens of videos from the protests, and while some people are wearing masks, many do not, and of those that do, many routinely remove them - e.g. to chant, or wear them only on part of the face, or even move them to the neck or forehead for extended times. A lot of them frequently readjust them with their hands - without washing the hands of course, which kinda defeats the whole purpose. Regular masks aren't super-efficient at long-time mass close contact anyway - they are lowering risk when you are walking on the street passing another person, with contact time measuring in seconds, but I don't think they would provide significant defense when staying in close contact for hours, especially while moving around, running, chanting, etc. Even less goes for homemade cloth masks, which many are wearing, which provide even less protection than surgical ones.
snickerbockers 6y ago
Then why were laws put into place to shut down everything if it's okay to participate in large-scale group activities as long as you're wearing a mask? And more importantly, why were Americans being told specifically not to wear masks during the opening months of the pandemic?

GuB-42 6y ago

Also in the letter > Prepare for an increased number of infections in the days following a protest. 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. The sentence "we do not condemn these gatherings as risky for COVID-19 transmission" is a bit ambiguous, maybe on purpose. The idea is that they won't use the risk of COVID-19 transmission as a argument to disapprove of the gatherings. They cannot say the gatherings are safe, because they aren't, but they also want to support them. That's how you get such an ambiguous message. I would have preferred a clearer stance as well like "We, as health professionals, recognize the risks, however, blah blah blah. You can minimize these risks by doing blah blah blah".

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
A clearer stance would help, but I feel like there's a fundamental problem with taking any stance. For public health authorities to affirmatively endorse political causes severely compromises their authority as neutral arbiters.
- GuB-42 6y ago
  It is not "public health authorities". It is not a message from the government or any organization in a position of power. Instead, it is an open letter from health professionals. They express themselves both as medical experts and as human beings, so having a political stance is no problem, as long as they make it clear which part of them is speaking. I think it is not clear enough in their letter, but in my opinion, there is absolutely nothing wrong with their message.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    They're not expressing their support for the protests as a personal or political question separate from their medical expertise. The letter says that "white supremacy is a lethal public health issue", racism is "the paramount public health problem", and the protests are "vital to the national public health". This is beyond simply not making it clear enough; they're deliberately invoking their medical expertise as a source of authority for their political judgments.

smsm42 6y ago

> However, as public health advocates, we do not condemn these gatherings as risky for COVID-19 transmission That's a shining example of weasel speak. They don't explicitly say it's not risky - because that would be plain lying, it is obviously risky - but they are saying they are not condemning it as risky. Which most people would take as implying it's not actually risky - even though they are not saying that. They are saying that the protest is too important to take health considerations into account, but they are reluctant to speak plainly and tell people there's risk but they should be adult and choose to manage the risks themselves and maybe neglect small risk in order to achieve bigger thing. Because that's what they spent last several months - and in fact, many years before - trying to convince people there's no way they can be treated as adults and just given the information and left to manage the risks by themselves. Just in this case, our betters had decided the COVID risk is less important than protesting - so it's OK for us. But only in cases which are approved by our betters. If you want to protest something else - it's still risky as heck and there they can fully condemn.

AmericanChopper 6y ago
It really just makes it undeniable how political the official advice and accompanying commentary is. The slew of new rules put in place for BLM protests are incredibly dubious, from both a legal and safety perspective. It’s not up to the government to decide what speech or cause for assembly is important, and health officials should not have their risk assessments swayed by political considerations.
- xphilter 6y ago
  What new rules specifically? And what rules were not in place for the armed all-white protests in Michigan, for instance?
  - drusepth 6y ago
    For example, countries permitting residents to "gather in groups of 12", or "protest in groups of up to 100". For example, https://cchealth.org/press-releases/2020/0602-Businesses-Reopening.php https://cchealth.org/press-releases/2020/0602-Businesses-Reo... Why create specialized rules for protests that allow an order of magnitude more people to gather than those allowed in a "close cohort" gathering?

RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago

> It completely ruins the credibility of many health professionals. Not just the credibility of health professionals, but all professionals. The big thing will be climate change. This will be brought up to say that technical professionals giving their advice are just partisan hacks who don’t care about the economy and people’s livelihoods, but do care about their virtue signaling.

watersb 6y ago

Systemic inequality is a component of the clinical presentation of the covid-19 pandemic in the United States. Black Americans have been dying from the disease at twice the rate, as a group, than the population in general. In my home state, half of the reported cases are among Native American communities. Limited access to healthcare is not a theoretical challenge. The link between historical injustice manifests every day in the pandemic crisis. And the nature of this virus - rapid, asymptomatic contagion - means that any vulnerable population can be a source of ongoing infection in the general population. Never has the bond in our common good been more clear. So sure, there are political positions to be taken in how best to move forward, but the virus doesn't care.

tenpies 6y ago
> Limited access to healthcare is not a theoretical challenge. The link between historical injustice manifests every day in the pandemic crisis. And the nature of this virus - rapid, asymptomatic contagion - means that any vulnerable population can be a source of ongoing infection in the general population. Why are we assuming it's systemic access to healthcare and not say Vitamin D deficiency? Healthcare access is worst in Africa and yet their numbers and outcomes are exponentially better. So what are the differences between African communities in the US and the ones in Africa? It just seems so politically American to assume that it must be evil systemic racism anytime a population does not do as well as white people, and yet not a peep is uttered when white people are lapped by another population.
- toasterlovin 6y ago
  Ideologies do not reward the search for truth, they punish it.

scarmig 6y ago

They're being flagrantly irresponsible. If nothing else, messaging and public trust are key parts of any epidemic response. Right now, a conservative might look at this letter and come away with the impression that this is a case of quarantine for thee but not for me. An opinion that wouldn't be unjustified: can you imagine them doing the same thing to provide cover for abortion protests? The right to religious gatherings? It burns goodwill and trust, making significant public health interventions harder both now and in the future. The reason, of course, is that ignoring the potential for disease transmission in these protests is necessary to stay in the good graces of woke circles.

noad 6y ago
Or maybe there are just bigger problems than the virus right now.
- scarmig 6y ago
  Your comment is a case in point: the takeaway the general public will have from this letter is that the virus doesn't really matter, and you should feel free to disregard it if you can come up with a vaguely plausible reason why your particular circumstances mean you should be exempt from caring about it. Which we kind of were at anyway, but now public health figures have given their signoff on that interpretation.
  - hrktb 6y ago
    The virus doesn’t seem to matter for police forces either, spraying tear gas as salutation and forcing anyone at reach to burst out as much body fluid as they possibly can. TBH from the outside it seems that whatever the death count is it never really mattered to a majority of people in the US.
  - noad 6y ago
    The CDC already failed us. Public health figures have been wrong repeatedly at the local, state, and national level. I understand people's frustration with them, and I understand why people don't care about their "signoffs" on what we're allowed to do, especially when the guidelines are completely nonsensical like in California. Where are the free clinics? Where are the free tests? Where is the free quarantine hotel room? None of that, instead we just get chided for being stupid and uncooperative by leaders. This is completely unacceptable, they failed us, not the other way around. And the police might actually kill me today, unlike the virus.

dehrmann 6y ago

Political statements like that can really hurt their credibility as public health officials, especially if increased transmission from protests causes them to call for another lockdown. Either say large, outdoor gatherings like this are risky or they aren't (or maybe they're just slightly risky). Don't get into "protesting these things is ok, protesting these isn't."

joegahona 6y ago
Exactly. If all of these civilians where smashed together in Trump rallies or concerts or sporting events, would they have the same petition circulating?

rayiner 6y ago

Right. It’s not the job of public health officials to make judgments about what risks are worthwhile. If we can protest with acceptable levels of risk, we should’ve been able to keep more of the economy operational with acceptable levels of risk. The advice shouldn’t differ because public health officials think social justice is more important than the economy.

an_opabinia 6y ago

> The virus is not selective of political beliefs I'm not really this much of a hack, so forgive me, because what you are saying is true in the most literal sense. But if you believe in capitalism, a political system, the virus will treat you better if you're rich -- a beneficiary of that system. It's not as reductive as better health care. As a rich person, you can easily stay at home without working, infinitely. The federal government's most effective anti-COVID intervention was actually saving the markets, it's the one promise the government delivered. And the biggest parts of that story are (1) that our society is oriented to protect capitalists, so of course there will be an effective and fast intervention nowadays that protects equities, like a five trillion dollar equities buying scheme, and (2) you can go ahead and sell your stocks to the government now, essentially, and live off this largess. You can go on ordering shit from Amazon and working from home for Facebook. You can shelter in place pretty much indefinitely. We're not even talking millionaires, we're talking about middle class people, programmers, health officials, pretty much everyone on this forum working for more than the 75th percentile income. This point of view doesn't even require the bullshit of categorizing your preferred kind of protestor. The reopen people, the peaceful protestor, even the looters all share a common political belief - let me illuminate it for you. None of those teenagers looting Best Buy have trusts, they don't have savings or anything that goes "up" and lets them or their parents stay home when the government props up the stock market. It's not as reductive as simply being poor (i.e. being on the wrong side of the system), or even being bored or angry. It's in opposition to the system. Imagine 18-78 years of "fuck you, you have to choose to die for money or die from homelessness and starvation" every single day. It's not just the pandemic times, though that exacerbates it immensely, for millions of people. It's like being born directly into jail. You'd go blow up a Best Buy too! You'd show up at the state capitol threatening people with guns! Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren lost the Democratic primary, to the relief of basically every venture capitalist I know. But a series of idiosyncratic votes, as should be obvious to everyone, isn't the end-all be-all refutation to socialist politics, even temporarily. And just because you don't hear political leaders or even ordinary people taking the leap and asking, "Well is there a point to looting a modern art store?" doesn't mean that there isn't a point. It might be political suicide, send along the down votes, but I can sympathize with people who are mad as hell about not being given the resources to shelter at home as comfortably as rich people do while simultaneously being told to shut the fuck up about it. The only solution to that is straightforward socialism, which lost in the primary but did not lose in the hearts and minds of millions of people. It means allowing stocks to drop, IPOs to dry up, tech workers get laid off, and people being paid to stay at home long past July and not work -- all ideas verbatim rejected by Republicans, venture capitalists and seemingly most on this forum. Socialist politics are stronger than ever. That health care officials may sympathize with those politics -- that it's a very specific capitalist system we have that is culpable for brutalizing minorities and failing to protect many people from a pandemic -- isn't surprising; they're smart people who have a very special perspective on what suffering really means. They, like many peaceful protestors, want to show solidarity with losers of the capitalism system without appealing to violence or coercion in the pursuit of an abstract goal like declining infection rates or whatever.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

empath75 6y ago

There’s a lot of risk for these protests but I do feel like protesting for some issue other than ‘end the lockdown’ is more justifiable than just protesting the lockdown itself. Even if it were an anti-abortion protest, for example — something I am ideologically opposed to — I wouldn’t stand in the way of a group that wanted to do that.

dustinmoris 6y ago
The lockdown will be directly responsible for an estimated death of 40 million people globally due to famine, hunger, job losses and lots of other directly related issues. Is 40M people not good enough to protest against the lockdown itself?
- empath75 6y ago
  Source?

Fellshard 6y ago

The analysis is quite simple: basic cynicism. Experts are incentivized to maximize results corresponding to their field /in isolation/ - with little or no trade-offs considered. This preserves their reputation, and allows them to recommend within the bounds of their knowledge. If an expert recommends religious institutions continue to hold only remote meetings, they are not going to suffer any consequences, both directly and as a response. Anger over such a decision will usually be directed to the politicians, instead. If an expert recommends these protests be halted due to risk, they themselves will likely be affected, and charged with racism and bigotry, likely - in our current environment - leading to total destruction of both professional and personal lives. The calculus is quite simple, and absolutely dangerous.

jsperson 6y ago
Thank you for stating this. I’ve spent a nontrivial amount of time recently on self analysis. To wit: am I racist because I find the doublespeak regarding quarantine/protests to be entirely illogical. Asking these questions on social media is a genuine reputation risk.
chasd00 6y ago
but reality doesn't care. when people start falling sick, and the curve steepens while the cries of "why weren't we warned!" become loud and clear what's going to be these "experts" answer then? Surely they've thought that far ahead. right? Or maybe the lockdowns were a massive over reaction and this is a subtle acknowledgment.
- Fellshard 6y ago
  Regardless which way the cookie crumbles, the damage to their reputations is done. Neither outcome is good, though one is obviously far more desirable in the short term: the one with less resulting death. Though, if they have lost credibility the next time this rolls 'round...

joegahona 6y ago

> This letter is signed by 1,288 public health professionals, infectious diseases professionals, and community stakeholders. Would love a breakdown of this. "Community stakeholders" is meaningless. The letter reads like something you'd see on change.org.

0xy 6y ago
That's a good idea, so they can be utterly discredited and assigned the proportional blame for the ensuing deaths.

g8tor 6y ago

It seems like there's an epidemic of fear & fake righteousness in the US. People cowed into taking counterfactual emotive positions by fear of lynching at the hands of hostile commentariat, now possessed of actual foot soldiers in the streets, itself too scared, or perhaps too drunk on its imagined righteousness, to do anything else. As someone wise once said the greatest misfortune in the world is to have an enemy. It's sad to see US with so many enemies seemingly within. Like a body racked with disease. An epidemic of emotive counterfactual fake narratives cannot be a good thing for society. I believe current events indicate this. Providing evidence narrative corruption can spill over into disastrous physical consequences. There must be a cure. Counter-narratives must be deployed. Discourse reform form must occur. Positive censorship and propaganda must be empowered to act like an immune system for the mass consciousness. A media complicit in propagating these divisive lies that fakejustify violence is a media that invites regulation. Does America have the will & the courage to heal itself?

nyczomg 6y ago

Crazy conspiracy theory incoming... What if the Illuminati or whoever runs society just figured out the fastest way to get tons of young people infected to speed up the herd immunity process??

wutbrodo 6y ago

Yup, public health institutions disgraced themselves in the beginning of the crisis[1], but it turns out this isn't just an unfortunate case of institutional rot: it apparently runs deep, throughout the individuals involved in the field. I'm a big supporter of the role experts play in a functioning society, but public health experts are yet another group setting their credibility on fire to provide momentary warmth to a political objective. [1] many of them have done so for years, for anyone paying attention

mns 6y ago

This is not just the US, I just realised that in Germany, Munich, there were some "rednecks" and weird people protesting the Corona measures. So they closed down a 100 acres area where Oktoberfest takes place for a 1000 person protest (that's how much they were allowed). Now I live in that area and on that weekend we were stopped by the police while going shopping, and they were stopping everyone to make sure you're not going to the demo. They had more security forces there than people at the protests. These protests are mostly stupid and fringe, and I am really grateful to be living in a country like Germany (not a german) that from my point of view handled the situation quite well as you don't have many reasons to protest the Corona measures here. Now, this weekend they had a protest here to support the ones in the US, and we just had 25000 people in a smaller place to show their solidarity. How is that going to help people's trust in the decisions taken by authorities, it just makes everything political.

hef19898 6y ago
At least in Munich, the latest protests are around a time everything is opening up again anyways. The anti-lockdown protest happened, more or less, during the hight of the lockdown. So totally different circumstances.
- mns 6y ago
  The one where police stopped us from going grocery shopping was exactly one week before, so it's not that far back. It's still not allowed to have mass protests, no matter the cause.
  - hef19898 6y ago
    You mentioned to be stopped by police and to be told to not go to the demo. Theydidn't stop you from going shopping, at least you didn't say so earlier. Seems to be two different things. All assemblies have to be registered upfront, regardless of COVID-19. SO if the assembly isn't permited, police will break it up. Happened more than once in the last weeks, didn't it? So I doubt your last point.

buboard 6y ago

In my country, the church protested that holy gatherings won't spread COVID because it is graced by god. What these scientists are doing is on an equivalent level of medieval stupidity. It's really sad to read this , and even more sad to see the media reproducing it without criticism. Outbreaks in mass gatherings are responsible for entire epidemics in italy, spain and germany. I can only imagine what will happen in a month, when racial minorities start accusing each other for the scale of the second epidemic.

Traubenfuchs 6y ago

This utterly ridiculous doublethink statement is a big present for real racists. Because it is blatantly racist and elitist.