Experts Fear Minneapolis Protests Will Trigger Spike In Coronavirus

ThatRobGuy · May 31, 2020

Experts Fear Minneapolis Protests Will Trigger Spike In Coronavirus Cases

HannahT · May 31, 2020

Sadly, many aren't worried about the virus anymore. They have moved on.

Albion · May 31, 2020

I'm going to guess that a lot of people who have been observant of the social distancing, staying at home, and similar dictates--partly out of respect for the law and partly because of the punishment that has been meted out to barbers who barber without permission, etc.--are going to conclude that if nothing happens to rioters, for heaven's sake, then there's not much reason for the rest of the population to feel bad about the awful crimes of visiting friends or going to church.

Ophiolite · May 31, 2020

Albion said:
I'm going to guess that a lot of people who have been observant of the social distancing, staying at home, and similar dictates--partly out of respect for the law and partly because of the punishment that has been meted out to barbers who barber without permission, etc.--are going to conclude that if nothing happens to rioters, for heaven's sake, then there's not much reason for the rest of the population to feel bad about the awful crimes of visiting friends or going to church.

Thoughtful people are observing the guidelines because they value their health and those of all others in their community. Telling that you omit that primary reason for following the rules/guidelines.
Also, I'm reasonably sure that Christianity supports the notion that two wrongs do not make a right. You should reflect on that.

Albion · May 31, 2020

Ophiolite said:
Thoughtful people are observing the guidelines because they value their health and those of all others in their community.

Some, I'm sure, fall into that category.

I said that I would guess that "a lot" of people have other motivations.

variant · May 31, 2020

ThatRobGuy said:
Experts Fear Minneapolis Protests Will Trigger Spike In Coronavirus Cases

Yeah. It obviously will.

ThatRobGuy · May 31, 2020

Ophiolite said:
Thoughtful people are observing the guidelines because they value their health and those of all others in their community. Telling that you omit that primary reason for following the rules/guidelines.
Also, I'm reasonably sure that Christianity supports the notion that two wrongs do not make a right. You should reflect on that.

I can't speak for the other poster, I'm an atheist, so reflecting on what Christianity does or doesn't support isn't part of my thought process. (assuming that was directed specifically for them)

It's telling that certain entities, who were implying that the entirety of the 'right to work' protests were just selfish people who "wanted a haircut" based on a few signs they spotted in the crowd, are notably pretty silent on this one.

I've yet to see any of the far-left social media personalities caricaturing these protests as "these are just selfish people who wanted a free TV from Target" the way they were for the other protests.

ThatRobGuy · May 31, 2020

variant said:
Yeah. It obviously will.

So where are the voices who were staunch advocates for mandated social distancing a few weeks ago?

The folks who bashed the 'right to work' protesters for being selfish, and "people just need to put their personal goals aside for right now and stay home to save lives, this is bigger than all of us, we're all in this together", don't seem to be giving the same lecture to the anti-police brutality protesters.

Did they just lose interest in Covid for the time being? Or is it that they've deemed themselves the arbiters of getting to decide which causes/goals get to be important enough to break protocol for?

GoldenBoy89 · May 31, 2020

That’s all I kept thinking seeing the crowds. This is just another public health disaster waiting to happen.

Ophiolite · May 31, 2020

ThatRobGuy said:
So where are the voices who were staunch advocates for mandated social distancing a few weeks ago?

The folks who bashed the 'right to work' protesters for being selfish, and "people just need to put their personal goals aside for right now and stay home to save lives, this is bigger than all of us, we're all in this together", don't seem to be giving the same lecture to the anti-police brutality protesters.

Did they just lose interest in Covid for the time being? Or is it that they've deemed themselves the arbiters of getting to decide which causes/goals get to be important enough to break protocol for?

If I were any further left I would fall off the edge of the planet. Here is my take on it:

The protestors had a justifiable grievance.
Their manner of expressing that grievance was ill-judged, irresponsible and dangerous.
Their disregard for social distancing is condemned, but this does not detract from the validity of their message.
A distinction needs to be made between:
- Peaceful protestors
- Protestors who lost self control and engaged in acts of violence
- Protestors who lost self control and engaged in acts of looting
- Opportunistic looters

ThatRobGuy · May 31, 2020

Ophiolite said:
If I were any further left I would fall off the edge of the planet. Here is my take on it:

The protestors had a justifiable grievance.

Their manner of expressing that grievance was ill-judged, irresponsible and dangerous.

Their disregard for social distancing is condemned, but this does not detract from the validity of their message.

A distinction needs to be made between:

Peaceful protestors

Protestors who lost self control and engaged in acts of violence

Protestors who lost self control and engaged in acts of looting

Opportunistic looters

I'd agree with all of those things...and I do make those distinctions, however, I'd ask folks who are on the far left (not sure of your position on it, you may already have a consistent position, but many I've spoken to do not) to offer to make those same distinctions for the "right to work" protesters as well.

I think a lot of the above applies to them.
- They did have a justifiable grievance (being forced to sit home as their businesses fail, or not being able to work while the bills are piling up is certainly something that it's justifiable to be upset over)
- Their manner of doing it was irresponsible
- Their disregard of distancing is condemned, but doesn't remove the validity of being upset about being forced to stay home from work while they fall behind on bills.

And distinctions should be made between
- legitimate protesters
- ones who just wanted to come out and mock because they thought it was some sort of hoax or joke
- ones who wanted to "play soldier" and walk around an intimidate people with rifles
- ones who just wanted to use it as an excuse to come out and gripe about a mayor/governor they didn't like

There's also a major disparity in the type of coverage of it as well. For instance, many were more than happy to caricature the 'right to work' protest based on one particular type of participant...we've all seen the "They're just selfish people who want to get a haircut" trope a thousand times now.

However, if someone on the other side of the political fence were to come out and say that the current protesters are "just selfish people who want to get a free TV from Target", they'd undoubtedly be given all sorts of labels in short order.

That, and there seems to be some selective outrage going with regards the varying groups that are hijacking the protests. You'll see a lot of outrage about white nationalists hijacking it to make BLM protesters look bad (which they should be outraged about), but very little mention of the fact that most of the protest-hijacking is coming from gangs and Antifa.

...and even when it is reported on, it's shown under a very different light. When white nationalist groups hijack it, they have no problem calling it what it is, an effort to disrupt peaceful protests by stirring the pot for unethical reasons. Yet, when forced to acknowledge the left-wing groups that are hijacking it, they use much softer language, for instance, the LA times described Antifa agitators in this way: the natural end result of hopelessness endured by generations of poor and working-class people who feel abandoned by the political process.

Despite the fact there's numerous videos clips at this point of peaceful BLM protesters engaging Antifa telling them "we don't want you here doing this, you're going to stir up problems and then they're going to blame us for it", and thus far, I haven't seen any video clips of white nationals being outed as doing it. I don't doubt there are some instances of it, but in the video-camera age, it must not be as widespread as the antifa agitation as there's already several videos of them spraypainting "BLM" on businesses and busting out windows as black people are telling them to stop.

variant · May 31, 2020

ThatRobGuy said:
So where are the voices who were staunch advocates for mandated social distancing a few weeks ago?

The folks who bashed the 'right to work' protesters for being selfish, and "people just need to put their personal goals aside for right now and stay home to save lives, this is bigger than all of us, we're all in this together", don't seem to be giving the same lecture to the anti-police brutality protesters.

Did they just lose interest in Covid for the time being? Or is it that they've deemed themselves the arbiters of getting to decide which causes/goals get to be important enough to break protocol for?

I think the idea that we tell people to "please stop protesting", it's going to counteract all that stuff we just did to contain a deadly virus, probably isn't going to do much.

jacks · May 31, 2020

There is definitely a double standard going on as far as coverage on the impact of the protests on Covid 19. Is anyone really surprised at this point? Though personally I would put the right to protest very high on the scale of rights not to be infringed. Of course I would do that with the right to religious gatherings too, which were roundly condemned.

ThatRobGuy · Jun 1, 2020

variant said:
I think the idea that we tell people to "please stop protesting", it's going to counteract all that stuff we just did to contain a deadly virus, probably isn't going to do much.

...oh, I don't think anyone "shaming" is going to change anything one way or the other at this point.

It has more to do with the notion that the voices who were the loudest in criticizing people for breaking lockdown protocols, or even opting to do a phased re-opening, and calling them "selfish for putting their other priorities over public health", are seemingly endorsing the current protests that are happening.

Especially when their political entity is the one that was claiming to be the "champions of public health".

It ends up coming across as group saying "we think everything should have to stay shut down, and we're going to badger anyone who doesn't agree into compliance"...and then that same group also wanting to get to dictate which things/causes get to be important enough to break protocol for.

If someone is going to get mad about 5 people getting together on a beach to hang out and tweet about it, I shouldn't see a tweet about how they "stand with the protesters".

That's how you end up getting self-contradicting positions like Cenk has.

He's spend the better part of a month bashing governors for gradual re-openings, claiming they were putting thousands of lives in danger for allowing a independent clothing store to re-open with social distancing requirements...went as far as calling Kemp "the dumbest governor" for his re-opening plan.

but then turns around and says this...

iluvatar5150 · Jun 1, 2020

ThatRobGuy said:
So where are the voices who were staunch advocates for mandated social distancing a few weeks ago?

The folks who bashed the 'right to work' protesters for being selfish, and "people just need to put their personal goals aside for right now and stay home to save lives, this is bigger than all of us, we're all in this together", don't seem to be giving the same lecture to the anti-police brutality protesters.

Did they just lose interest in Covid for the time being? Or is it that they've deemed themselves the arbiters of getting to decide which causes/goals get to be important enough to break protocol for?

That’s because most of the protesters weren’t protesting the economic impacts of the lockdown; they were protesting the offending of their sensibilities regarding tyranny. Not until I saw people giving haircuts at a protest did I finally see something resembling an economic protest.

Their lack of visibility now suggests they weren’t even really bothered by tyranny; they were bothered by being inconvenienced.

variant · Jun 1, 2020

ThatRobGuy said:
...oh, I don't think anyone "shaming" is going to change anything one way or the other at this point.

It has more to do with the notion that the voices who were the loudest in criticizing people for breaking lockdown protocols, or even opting to do a phased re-opening, and calling them "selfish for putting their other priorities over public health", are seemingly endorsing the current protests that are happening.

I simply don't think that's true. Given that Monday morning I woke to people talking about the exact concerns you were talking about from the usual sources I go to for news.

The idea that you can talk to people about not crowding into churches because we were trying to do something for public health relies on a certain level of of civil nicety that you simply aren't going to get from angry protesters on either side of this discussion.

Generally once you get to the idea of protest, or the next step in to rioting, doing stuff for social cohesion and the greater good becomes more difficult.

ThatRobGuy · Jun 2, 2020

iluvatar5150 said:
That’s because most of the protesters weren’t protesting the economic impacts of the lockdown; they were protesting the offending of their sensibilities regarding tyranny. Not until I saw people giving haircuts at a protest did I finally see something resembling an economic protest.

Their lack of visibility now suggests they weren’t even really bothered by tyranny; they were bothered by being inconvenienced.

I think there was a bit of both, but certainly not all (or even a majority) were of the ilk of "yellow no step on snek flag"

There were people legitimately frustrated about their livelihoods being ruined.

2020-04-16T152839Z_1786908302_RC2R5G9Y21DQ_RTRMADP_3_HEALTH-CORONAVIRUS-USA-STATES-1200x800.jpg

Their lack of visibility right now is attributed to a couple things.
A) Many states have re-opened to a large enough degree to appease them and they got what they wanted
B) Many probably aren't that interested in getting clocked with a brick by some 22 year old wearing a hammer and sickle hoodie

Many of the guys who were of the "government tyranny" ilk actually have been participating in these recent protests, by either protesting with them (because those guys typically don't like cops either), or by acting as security for Black-owned businesses that were in the "danger zone" during the rioting.

iluvatar5150 · Jun 2, 2020

ThatRobGuy said:
I think there was a bit of both, but certainly not all (or even a majority) were of the ilk of "yellow no step on snek flag"

It might depend on which protest you look at, but we had another thread here about a month ago where I went through some of the photos from the first Michigan protest and it absolutely was the case that the messages were overwhelmingly of the "yellow no step on snek flag" variety - so much so that I was a bit surprised at just how lopsided it was once I had the numbers. Even in that second photo you posted, among the signs where text is legible, economic issues are outnumbered by those related to "tyranny" - and that's not counting all the American flags which, I think it's safe to assume, aren't being flown for concern about jobs..

Tanj · Jun 2, 2020

I agree with the experts. Having said that, the most important commentary on this should be coming from the leadership. Sadly, the planet only has one person worthy of that title at the moment.

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/it-was-...lives-matter-protesters-over-coronavirus-risk

iluvatar5150 · Jun 2, 2020

Dartmouth and RT.live both showing increased growth rates in southern states:

Rt Covid-19

Mapping COVID-19 - Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care

Experts Fear Minneapolis Protests Will Trigger Spike In Coronavirus

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