For months, public health experts have urged Americans to take every precaution to stop the spread of Covid-19—stay at home, steer clear of friends and extended family, and absolutely avoid large gatherings.
Now some of those experts are broadcasting a new message: It’s time to get out of the house and join the mass protests against racism.
“We should always evaluate the risks and benefits of efforts to control the virus,” Jennifer Nuzzo, a Johns Hopkins epidemiologist, tweeted on Tuesday. “In this moment the public health risks of not protesting to demand an end to systemic racism greatly exceed the harms of the virus.”
“The injustice that’s evident to everyone right now needs to be addressed,” Abraar Karan, a Brigham and Women’s Hospital physician who’s exhorted coronavirus experts to use their platforms to encourage the protests, told me.
It’s a message echoed by media outlets and some of the most prominent public health experts in America, like former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Tom Frieden, who loudly warned against efforts to rush reopening but is now supportive of mass protests. Their claim: If we don’t address racial inequality, it’ll be that much harder to fight Covid-19.
But their messages are also confounding to many who spent the spring strictly isolated on the advice of health officials, only to hear that the need might not be so absolute after all. It’s particularly nettlesome to conservative skeptics of the all-or-nothing approach to lockdown, who point out that many of those same public health experts—a group that tends to skew liberal—widely criticized activists who held largely outdoor protests against lockdowns in April and May, accusing demonstrators of posing a public health danger. Conservatives, who felt their own concerns about long-term economic damage or even mental health costs of lockdown were brushed aside just days or weeks ago, are increasingly asking whether these public health experts are letting their politics sway their health care recommendations.
15 comments:
Swine.
You've got to love their results though, right? 40,000,000 unemployed, businesses permanently wrecked from one end of this country to the other, probably never to ever come back, Lord knows what kind of economic mayhem that may end up being permanent. These assholes have game, I'll give them that.
Arthur? If it flares up again and bodies start dropping dead in the streets or something, I'll likely be one of them. Won't make me no never mind, I'm well past my sell-by date, but I'm not going to believe another word those people say about anything at all.
The more time passes the more I become convinced that the Current Unpleasantness and civil strife would not have been nearly as widespread nor as shattering if it had not been for the pandemic lockdowns that preceded it.
Coop everyone up in their houses for almost three months with nothing to do but troll the internet, yank kids out of school with little or no warning, totally upend everyone's daily routine, deprive them of almost everything that builds a sense of community cohesion -- school, sports (amateur and professional), church, community celebrations and other events, special interest/hobby groups, neighborhood watering holes, weddings, funerals, proms, graduations -- feed them continually shifting and conflicting information and directives (wear/don't wear masks, etc.), and deprive them of their livelihood on top of it, and it's no wonder the entire nation was on the verge of a nervous breakdown long before George Floyd died.
I suspect that if Floyd had died a year earlier, when there was no pandemic and the economy was humming along fairly nicely, the riots/demonstrations sparked by his death would have remained largely confined to Minneapolis and a few other large cities, and I also suspect that there would have been a much more muted reaction in STL. Didn't seem like anyone was in the mood to burn down the city last year!
Personally I think the #1 thing that the nation needs to do is get back to a normal routine as soon as possible....open up schools and summer camps (give the youths something to do), bring back pro sports (something else to cheer for or against), get churches up and running again, let people have family gatherings again, bring back community events and celebrations even if they have to be scaled down a bit. Of course this might be easier said than done in riot-devastated cities but just giving people a sense of normalcy and hope that life will go on -- and away from all the wild rumors, speculations and trolling on social media -- would do a lot to defuse tensions IMO.
I forgot to add that the reason I don't think anyone was "in the mood to burn down the city" of STL last year at this time was because the Blues were in the Stanley Cup finals.... it might seem silly but I think that does do a lot to boost the morale of a community.
Never would happen in a non-election year. The cynic in me has never been livelier than in the last 3-4 months.
The 1967 riots happened during the Viet Nam war. Perfect storm also.
Elaine, I totally agree with you.
These "health experts" think it was good to keep believers out of church, but it's fine to send radical "believers" into the streets to "protest," loot, and burn. In New York, De Blasio shut down an Orthodox Jewish funeral last month, even though they were outside, but now he's proud that his little girl went to a "protest" and got arrested.
The stock market opened at +760 points this morning. The economy is bouncing back. Jim Cramer was talking about travel opening up and had VP Pence on as a guest.
Our own city is planning a late graduation ceremony for both of our high schools, but at least the kids will have their sense of closure and celebration.
Gov. Baker is opening Massachusetts up - we are going into Phase 2 next Monday, which will include Day Cares and Summer Camps (as well as many small businesses.)
Everywhere you find blue leadership, you find that the virus takes a back seat to protest. Governor Whitmer here in Michigan marched through impoverished parts of Detroit in protest of the vicious Floyd killing. And right on cue, her spokeswoman told us to not believe our lying eyes as she stood shoulder to shoulder with protesters in violation of her own gathering rules. In a place where we know there are undetected cases.
I hope to Heaven there's no spike in the next two weeks. We will see.
Where have you been, big guy? Still got the site up?
I have been spending entirely too much time on "social [sic] media."
Got sick of it and am bowing out for the time being. I got sick of being angry, and the dopamine hits of likes and laughs weren't anywhere close to being worth the frustration.
And I do have the old blog up and moving a bit for the first time in two years, yes.
I was on Twitter until I got run off. Never officially knew why. While I wouldn't mind being able to call out the stupidity now and then, I've basically decided that it wouldn't be emotionally worth it. So I cranked this thing back up and have at life with it now and then.
I'll get a link up to your place.
I hope to Heaven there's no spike in the next two weeks. We will see.
If people over 60 and heavy people over 50 had the sense to stay home, there may be a spike, but it will be of modest significance. Whitmer was already facing non-compliance. Now she's trashed whatever credibility she had and will be relying on local sheriffs deputies to enforce regulations after having trashed police. Good luck with that.
the vicious Floyd killing.
The man had coronary artery disease, was intoxicated with fentanyl, had traces of three other street drugs in his system, and was non-compliant when they placed him in the vehicle.
Blacks aren't in mortal danger from police officers in any systematic way. The objection is that people of lower status per the hierarchies established by gentry liberals and black chauvinists (that would be police officers) are permitted to impose rules on people of higher status (blacks).
I was on Twitter until I got run off. Never officially knew why.
One of Jack Dorsey's millennial nose-pickers was triggers when you said something critical of male homosexuals.
Post a Comment