6 ms·

really? And many thousands of protesters all across the country (many not wearing masks and certainly not social distancing) aren't a 'superspreading event'?

really? And many thousands of protesters all across the country (many not wearing masks and certainly not social distancing) aren't a 'superspreading event'? I don't think I've even seen one article mentioning it...because racism.

HarryHirsch 6y ago
It's surprising, but you can't argue with data - there were cases associated with Sturgis but not with the BLM protests. It kind of makes sense - that one thing Sturgis had and BLM didn't is bars. People catch COVID when they spend time in an enclosed enviroment next to an infected individual. Why bars and nightclubs are still open is a mystery from a public health standpoint.
- phillipseamore 6y ago
  And the difference in mask wearing.
  - DFHippie 6y ago
    Yep. I went to only one BLM protest, but everyone was very conscientious about mask wearing.
- bmarquez 6y ago
  It's true that you can't argue with data, but what if you're not allowed to collect the data. How can you criticize what you can't measure? As an example, NYC contact tracers were forbidden[1] to ask if people attended a protest. [1]https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/nyc-s-contact-tracers-have-been-told-not-to-ask-people-if-they-ve-attended-a-protest/ar-BB15w7qT https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/nyc-s-contact-tracers-have...
  - BrandonMarc 6y ago
    Very relevant point. We can't trust the science if the science isn't allowed to see certain things.
    - bananabreakfast 6y ago
      Not relevant at all. The government cannot be trusted to gather lists of protest attendees since they would be immediately used for retaliation. Statistics can be looked at in aggregate. Infections did not go up in areas with large protests.
      - dmurray 6y ago
        The BLM tribe has safer Covid behaviour in general than the other side, though, outside their protest attendance. That's a pretty big confounding variable.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - anigbrowl 6y ago
      that's why the authors of these studies have been using anonymized cellphone data to study concentrations of people and subsequent changes (if any) in case loads.
  - HarryHirsch 6y ago
    NYC contact tracers were forbidden to ask if people attended a protest Refusing to collect that data point is completely understandable from a public health standpoint. There is substantiated concern that people may end up on cop shitlists for attending a protest, we know that there is police overreach, and the only way to keep the pigs out of the trough is not providing it at all. NYPD is notoriously corrupt. If any single person ended up being harassed by the cops as a result for telling the truth no one will ever work with a contact tracer again. Sad that the cops can't restrain themselves in a time of public emergency but that's the reality we live in.
    - bananabreakfast 6y ago
      > Sad that the cops can't restrain themselves Honestly, this is true in general
cjlars 6y ago
I think there's only a few white papers on the protests, here's one not otherwise mentioned in the thread: https://academic.oup.com/jpubhealth/advance-article/doi/10.1093/pubmed/fdaa127/5880636 https://academic.oup.com/jpubhealth/advance-article/doi/10.1...
reportingsjr 6y ago
Almost every bit of protesting footage I've seen has the majority of people wearing masks, which is a huge deal. In the footage of the motorcycle rally in sturgis, I have seen almost no one wearing masks. On top of this, people protesting were almost exclusively outdoors whereas there are tons of stores, bars, etc in sturgis that people went in. Your comment is just ridiculous political pandering, trying to focus the topic other events that aren't similar in the slightest.
- BrandonMarc 6y ago
  I saw lots of protest images in June, and July, and lately, featuring very few people with masks.
  - bananabreakfast 6y ago
    Then you saw a set of images curated to support a specific narrative not representative of the larger group.
    - liability 6y ago
      I live in Seattle and visited CHAZ/CHOP. While most protestors had masks, a large number of them had the mask below their nose and frequently not covering their mouth either. Nobody curated what I witnessed firsthand. I think the biggest difference is the protests skewed young and motorcycle rallies skew boomer.
      - phobosanomaly 6y ago
        I have zero data to support this, but I've thought about it a lot and it seems to me that the majority of respiratory droplet secretion would be through the mouth during vocalization as a result of the vocal cords vibrating. +1 for the boomer skew.
- stateofnounion 6y ago
  Thanks for citing that widely available and incredibly reliable data set of "things that you've seen and now try to remember from the past few months."
Splendor 6y ago
Yeah, articles about things that didn't actually happen are less common.
the_gastropod 6y ago
Good grief. I don't understand how this is shocking to anyone, tbh. Not everything "both sides" has to be equivalent. On the one side, you have a group of people who are super-skeptical that covid is even real, or even much worse than the flu. They tend to avoid wearing masks, and think those who do wear masks are weak, sheep, and/or deluded. On the "other side", you have a group of people who are, kind of by definition, empathetic humans, who are protesting the way our Black brothers and sisters are being treated. They tend to wear masks, stay outside, and be respectful to one-another. There have been studies on this. See: https://www.nber.org/papers/w27408 https://www.nber.org/papers/w27408 But, I guess as is consistent with conservatavism in this day and age, it's easier to believe this is "fake news" and some vast conspiracy to make Trump and co. look bad.
ianjsikes 6y ago
Actually it was pretty easy to find a paper on that exact subject by the same authors. https://www.iza.org/publications/dp/13388/black-lives-matter-protests-social-distancing-and-covid-19 https://www.iza.org/publications/dp/13388/black-lives-matter... > "we find no evidence that urban protests reignited COVID-19 case growth during the more than three weeks following protest onset. We conclude that predictions of broad negative public health consequences of Black Lives Matter protests were far too narrowly conceived."
- BrandonMarc 6y ago
  Should concerns over Sturgis also be too narrowly conceived, then?
  - CyberDildonics 6y ago
    It is a separate event with much more in door crowds and much less mask wearing. Reality is not a negotiation where two different agendas agree on what they will pretend is the truth.
  - chishaku 6y ago
    This is the subject of the article.

HarryHirsch 6y ago

It's surprising, but you can't argue with data - there were cases associated with Sturgis but not with the BLM protests. It kind of makes sense - that one thing Sturgis had and BLM didn't is bars. People catch COVID when they spend time in an enclosed enviroment next to an infected individual. Why bars and nightclubs are still open is a mystery from a public health standpoint.

phillipseamore 6y ago
And the difference in mask wearing.
- DFHippie 6y ago
  Yep. I went to only one BLM protest, but everyone was very conscientious about mask wearing.
bmarquez 6y ago
It's true that you can't argue with data, but what if you're not allowed to collect the data. How can you criticize what you can't measure? As an example, NYC contact tracers were forbidden[1] to ask if people attended a protest. [1]https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/nyc-s-contact-tracers-have-been-told-not-to-ask-people-if-they-ve-attended-a-protest/ar-BB15w7qT https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/nyc-s-contact-tracers-have...
- BrandonMarc 6y ago
  Very relevant point. We can't trust the science if the science isn't allowed to see certain things.
  - bananabreakfast 6y ago
    Not relevant at all. The government cannot be trusted to gather lists of protest attendees since they would be immediately used for retaliation. Statistics can be looked at in aggregate. Infections did not go up in areas with large protests.
    - dmurray 6y ago
      The BLM tribe has safer Covid behaviour in general than the other side, though, outside their protest attendance. That's a pretty big confounding variable.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - anigbrowl 6y ago
    that's why the authors of these studies have been using anonymized cellphone data to study concentrations of people and subsequent changes (if any) in case loads.
- HarryHirsch 6y ago
  NYC contact tracers were forbidden to ask if people attended a protest Refusing to collect that data point is completely understandable from a public health standpoint. There is substantiated concern that people may end up on cop shitlists for attending a protest, we know that there is police overreach, and the only way to keep the pigs out of the trough is not providing it at all. NYPD is notoriously corrupt. If any single person ended up being harassed by the cops as a result for telling the truth no one will ever work with a contact tracer again. Sad that the cops can't restrain themselves in a time of public emergency but that's the reality we live in.
  - bananabreakfast 6y ago
    > Sad that the cops can't restrain themselves Honestly, this is true in general

cjlars 6y ago

I think there's only a few white papers on the protests, here's one not otherwise mentioned in the thread: https://academic.oup.com/jpubhealth/advance-article/doi/10.1093/pubmed/fdaa127/5880636 https://academic.oup.com/jpubhealth/advance-article/doi/10.1...

reportingsjr 6y ago

Almost every bit of protesting footage I've seen has the majority of people wearing masks, which is a huge deal. In the footage of the motorcycle rally in sturgis, I have seen almost no one wearing masks. On top of this, people protesting were almost exclusively outdoors whereas there are tons of stores, bars, etc in sturgis that people went in. Your comment is just ridiculous political pandering, trying to focus the topic other events that aren't similar in the slightest.

BrandonMarc 6y ago
I saw lots of protest images in June, and July, and lately, featuring very few people with masks.
- bananabreakfast 6y ago
  Then you saw a set of images curated to support a specific narrative not representative of the larger group.
  - liability 6y ago
    I live in Seattle and visited CHAZ/CHOP. While most protestors had masks, a large number of them had the mask below their nose and frequently not covering their mouth either. Nobody curated what I witnessed firsthand. I think the biggest difference is the protests skewed young and motorcycle rallies skew boomer.
    - phobosanomaly 6y ago
      I have zero data to support this, but I've thought about it a lot and it seems to me that the majority of respiratory droplet secretion would be through the mouth during vocalization as a result of the vocal cords vibrating. +1 for the boomer skew.
stateofnounion 6y ago
Thanks for citing that widely available and incredibly reliable data set of "things that you've seen and now try to remember from the past few months."

Splendor 6y ago

Yeah, articles about things that didn't actually happen are less common.

the_gastropod 6y ago

Good grief. I don't understand how this is shocking to anyone, tbh. Not everything "both sides" has to be equivalent. On the one side, you have a group of people who are super-skeptical that covid is even real, or even much worse than the flu. They tend to avoid wearing masks, and think those who do wear masks are weak, sheep, and/or deluded. On the "other side", you have a group of people who are, kind of by definition, empathetic humans, who are protesting the way our Black brothers and sisters are being treated. They tend to wear masks, stay outside, and be respectful to one-another. There have been studies on this. See: https://www.nber.org/papers/w27408 https://www.nber.org/papers/w27408 But, I guess as is consistent with conservatavism in this day and age, it's easier to believe this is "fake news" and some vast conspiracy to make Trump and co. look bad.

ianjsikes 6y ago

Actually it was pretty easy to find a paper on that exact subject by the same authors. https://www.iza.org/publications/dp/13388/black-lives-matter-protests-social-distancing-and-covid-19 https://www.iza.org/publications/dp/13388/black-lives-matter... > "we find no evidence that urban protests reignited COVID-19 case growth during the more than three weeks following protest onset. We conclude that predictions of broad negative public health consequences of Black Lives Matter protests were far too narrowly conceived."

BrandonMarc 6y ago
Should concerns over Sturgis also be too narrowly conceived, then?
- CyberDildonics 6y ago
  It is a separate event with much more in door crowds and much less mask wearing. Reality is not a negotiation where two different agendas agree on what they will pretend is the truth.
- chishaku 6y ago
  This is the subject of the article.