Attending the protests, Moss said, “is not emerging as a risk for the most recent cases we are seeing in the county.”
Stanford University epidemiologist Yvonne Maldonado came to the same conclusion. “I was concerned that the protests could be broadcast events,” she said. “It turns out, in a nutshell, that doesn’t seem to happen.”
Kirsten Bibbons-Domingo, chair of UCSF’s Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, says the surge in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations in California “has as much to do with the reopening of the economy as it does with any discreet event like protests.”
The increase in cases does not match the time or places where the protests took place, he said, although it is difficult to make a final determination on this without further evidence and sufficient contact trackers.
San Francisco does not have data related to protesters who tested positive because test sites do not ask people if they have recently participated in protests, city spokeswoman Cristina Padilla said.
The state is still looking at whether the protests contributed to the growing number of infections, Governor Gavin Newsom said Wednesday, reviewing data from the COVID-19 case and hospitalization.
The total number of cases and hospitalizations in the state has increased. Newsom said Monday that more than 35% of the state’s number of cases emerged in the previous two weeks, prompting it to issue an order for California residents to wear face masks.
The governor discouraged people from assuming, according to early reports, that the virus does not spread in protests.
“Use common sense,” Newsom said. “Just because someone else has done something that is not good for your public health does not mean you have to do something that is not good for your public health.”
Alameda County officials are encouraging people who attended demons to get tested at sites in Oakland, Berkeley or other areas of the county. People do not need insurance and will not be asked about their immigration status, according to the county.
San Francisco officials say they are also offering free COVID-19 tests for people who have attended a recent protest.
So what happened?
Health experts say the lack of a rise related to the protests could be attributed to several factors.
Outdoor settings, where the virus doesn’t spread as well, and wearing masks likely lowered transmission rates, Bibbins-Domingo says. “What I saw on television: a lot of people, most of the people wore masks,” he said.
Protesters may also be younger, and therefore have mild symptoms or be asymptomatic, he added, and those infections would not have been reported in total cases because there is less incentive for people to get tested.
He urged those who participated in the large gatherings to get tested, because they could still be spreading the virus without realizing it.
They actually did the protests lower Transmission?
A conflicting finding about the protests and the coronavirus comes in a working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. The researchers analyzed federal coronavirus data and combined it with cell phone records to conclude that while many people took to the streets to protest, images of riots, police violence, and vandalism may have spurred many more to stay home. Therefore, the protests could have had the net effect of limiting movement, which would have reduced the spread of the virus in some areas.
“We found no evidence that net case growth of COVID-19 increased differentially after the start of the Black Lives Matter protests, and even modest evidence of a small decline in long-term case growth,” the researchers wrote. .
Bibbins-Domingo says that mass participation in the protests shows that there are ways to reduce the risks posed by the coronavirus through precautions such as covering the face, tests, and potentially post-event quarantines.
But she emphasizes proceeding with caution. “It would not take as proof that it did not have a large increase after a protest or some protests … that the virus is no longer a threat,” he said.
