Protests fuel risk of COVID- 19, experts say

Public health officials warn new cases of COVID- 19 probably will emerge after mass gatherings fueled by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and racial unrest in cities across America.

Health experts fear carriers of coronavirus, which causes the disease, with no symptoms could unwittingly infect others at protests where social distancing is simply not taking place. The merits of the protesters’ cause “doesn’t prevent them from getting the virus,” said Bradley Pollock, chairman of the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of California, Davis.

At least one protester in Tampa, Florida, is known to have COVID- 19. Tampa Police Chief Brian Dugan, who expressed dismay last week about Floyd’s death, tweeted Monday that five of his officers were exposed to the protester, whom he did not identify.

Protesting – especially without a mask – can put people at higher risk for infection, said Dr. Michael Mina, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that these can become breeding grounds for this virus,” he said during a Monday media availability. “I would not be surprised to see in the next couple of weeks that we see increases that may be linked to protests.”

As businesses reopen, it will be difficult to figure out whether someone caught the virus at a protest or in some other encounter, Mina said.

Hopefully, the fact that protests are taking place out of doors, will dilute the virus and reduce disease transmission, he said. Wearing a mask will help reduce infections, though it won’t completely eliminate risk.

“If there’s a floridly positive person who is coughing and spending a whole day around a lot of other people, that person might very well get other people sick despite having a mask on,” Mina added, but “there’s a good chance that even homemade masks will actually do quite a bit to help people not get infected and not transmit.”