US rallies may have spread virus, phone data suggests

WASHINGTON: Anti-lockdown protesters could have potentially contributed to the spread of the coronavirus in the US as they often travelled for hundreds of kilometres, sometimes to different states, to attend rallies, according to an analysis of data gathered from location-tracking of the protesters’ cellphones.

But the analysis of the anonymised location data by Votemap and reported by The Guardian news publication doesn’t directly link the protests to new infections or surges. It only flags the possibility of protesters carrying the virus back from high-infection areas.

Devices from the armed protests in Madison, Michigan, which caught the world’s attention, were seen returning to remote areas of the state.

Rob Davidson of the Committee to Protect Medicare that provided the data to The Guardian told the publication, “It’s hard to draw a straight line between devices, individuals at these protests, and cases.”

Meanwhile, White House adviser Peter Navarro rebuked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the top US health agency, on Sunday, saying “it let the country down” on providing testing crucial to the battle against Covid-19.

Navarro said, “The CDC... let the country down with the testing because not only did they keep the testing within the bureaucracy, they had a bad test.”

In New York, governor Andrew Cuomo got tested on live TV on Sunday as he said all people in the state with flu-like symptoms are now eligible for tests.

The country reported 808 new deaths in the last 24 hours.