LogFAQs > #941609367

adjl posted...

On paper, sure, but American compliance with distancing recommendations and whatnot has been pretty poor, many states have been aggressively pushing to reopen stuff regardless of how safe it is to do so, and testing rates have never really gotten high enough to have a decent idea of exactly where all of the cases are. The shut down has been half-assed at best in most areas, and the results speak to that.

Bullshit.

adjl posted...

You're awfully fixated on this point. It seems to be really bothering you. Here are the facts, though:

Masks are significantly more common in these protests than you seem to believe, as is social distancing. Your perception of the protests has been heavily biased by what you've seen getting the most media attention, which is in turn heavily biased toward ones that turn violent (whether police or rioters started it) and are therefore too chaotic for measures to be maintained.

...and not the countless video of people marching shoulder-to-shoulder which, as you suggest, I'm sure is done intentionally by the protestors to make the movement look bigger. Honestly, there seems to be more social distancing and face masks at the riots, although I'm not sure the mask-wearing there has anything to do with COVID

adjl posted...

There's substantial overlap between the political demographics that are attending these protests and the political demographics that have been following public health recommendations up until this point. This means fewer protesters are going to be infected to begin with, limiting the risk of spread. Many would-be protesters also opted to stay home if they were at all symptomatic, which also limited potential spread.

Which is a laughable suggestion and ridiculous even at a surface level. The infection rates have repeatedly been noted as being highest among low-income Americans, the same group that's very likely to turn out at these protests. Oh, and you want to bring up demographics?

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/need-extra-precautions/racial-ethnic-minorities.html

By the way, where are the biggest protests happening? Isn't it in places like NYC which *already* had the highest outbreak rates?

adjl posted...

The overwhelming majority of these protests took place outside, which generally helps to reduce the risk of transmission (faster dissipation of droplets, sunlight, faster evaporation).

And that might be a great excuse if they hadn't been promoting social distance even under those conditions (and even when wearing a mask) which, again, clearly not being observed.

adjl posted...

These protests have come at a point when the country as a whole is loosening restrictions and many people are returning (far too fast) to life as usual, causing case numbers to climb across the board. The Memorial Day weekend in particular resulted in a sizable jump, and it's really just kept climbing since then. The side effect of that is that any surge in cases that has arisen from the protests is likely to be swallowed up by the background case numbers rising at a comparable rate and not appear to be particularly significant.

Normal workers aren't going to get near the level of exposure that you would at a protest... well, unless they had to travel by or through the protests, which means that if the restrictions are legit, the protestors aren't just risking infection to themselves, but to innocent bystanders.

adjl posted...

Among other reasons, these points mean that you cannot look solely at the direct results of the protests and say that they prove the pandemic was never a big deal and that our efforts to date haven't achieved anything. The public health recommendations given work. Dozens of other countries have followed them and seen exactly the results that epidemiologists have been saying they should (it's almost like people who devote their entire careers to studying the transmission of diseases know a thing or two about disease transmission). That a bunch of protests haven't single-handedly infected the entire country despite not following guidelines as closely as they should doesn't change that reality, nor does the fact that the US hasn't seen great results after barely pretending to follow said guidelines.

No, I can look at the guidelines and see that they're not being enforced at all in some contexts which strongly suggests that the guidelines didn't mean shit in the first place because otherwise they would have been consistent. The outcome is window dressing. If you believe that something is actually a risk and that certain actions would be taken in light of that risk, those actions would be taken regardless. If you're arresting pastors and fining people for stopping in parks, you must view it as serious. However, if protests are being allowed, how seriously could have officially believed in these guidelines?

If you're claiming that partisanship is undermining safety, the blank check on the protests would be a perfect example. However, the way that these lockdowns have been handled really suggests that the guidelines haven't been meaningful in the first place and we've suffered for nothing. The lockdowns were bad, the fact that they're starting to seem like they were never necessary is worse. As it is, we've been locked down waaaaaaaay longer than other nations and we haven't seen any good result for the effort.

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There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.