U Colorado Prof: Protests slowed the spread of the virus
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https://coloradosun.com/2020/06/30/police-protests-coronavirus-spread/
The study looked at 315 American cities with populations of more than 100,000 and found that 281 of those cities saw protests. The remaining 34 cities that did not see protests — which, at the time, included Aurora — were used as a control group against which to measure the impact of the protests.
The researchers found that protests correlated with a net increase in overall stay-at-home behavior in cities where they occurred — and the increase was larger in cities that saw more sustained protests or reports of violence.
Friedson said he and his colleagues were a bit surprised at first. The protests in many cities, including Denver, were massive, drawing tens of thousands of people out to march. But they occurred in cities with hundreds of thousands to millions of residents.
“We started thinking about it a little more and we thought, ‘Oh my gosh we’re capturing everybody else,’” he said.
The paper also found that, with greater social distancing, COVID case growth slowed in cities with protests from what would be expected — but not by a statistically significant amount. There may be other explanations for the trends, the study’s authors note. Overall, though, they say the data show that any resurgence in coronavirus cases can’t be pinned entirely on the protests.
“Public speech and public health did not trade off against each other in this case,” the authors wrote in the paper.
But Friedson said there is one last important thing to keep in mind about this study: It’s not a green light for governments to fully reopen bars, concert venues and other places where people gather in large numbers. The key to the researcher’s conclusions is that the protests, while receiving lots of support, were ultimately things most people decided to avoid. That’s not true of many other large gatherings.
‘An outdoor wedding doesn’t generate avoidance behavior; we’re measuring avoidance behavior,” Friedson said. “People don’t say, ‘Oh man, there’s an outdoor wedding next door, we should stay home.’”
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WHO Scientists Confirm Coronavirus Only Spreads At Conservative Protests
GENEVA—W.H.O. scientists have confirmed that the coronavirus only spreads at problematic protests, like conservative rallies, Trump campaign events, and Second Amendment rights demonstrations. The study found that the coronavirus will not spread at progressive protests or violent riots.
The W.H.O. study showed that only Republicans, 2nd Amendment demonstrators, and Trump supporters can spread dangerous viruses when they break lockdown to assemble and protest, not any other kind of protesters.
"You only want people to die if you go protest for conservative causes -- otherwise, you're safe," said a W.H.O. scientist as he mixed two differently colored liquids together. They exploded and his hair went straight back, burning his face. "AHHHHH!!!"
Unfortunately, the scientist was later discovered to be a bunch of raccoons in a lab coat, so the results of the study may be suspect.
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I believe the net increase in stay at home, especially during the first week of the protests when they were most violent.
But not the 'slowed the spread of the virus' finding. I have a very high evidentiary bar for findings that take the form of "SARS-COV-2 sides with me in the culture wars" and this doesn't meet it.
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The finding even if true is trivial at best. Nobody doubts that large gatherings don't help with COVID. If those large gatherings are avoided by an even larger group of people, who stay indoors, well, whoop dee doo. That is a separate issue from the fact that large gatherings don't help with COVID. A reductio analogy would be that if you shoot everybody in the head, you would eliminate COVID deaths entirely.
