Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

How depressingly myopic. Hundreds of thousands of your fellow citizens peacefully assemble to protest inequity and that's your take from it? It demonstrates such contempt for the principles of liberty. Thomas Jefferson is rolling in his grave.

 

from what i saw , if hundreds of thousands peacefully protested, there were millions rioting and looting, ask all the business owners whose stores were destroyed.

 

part of my point was that an awful lot of the peaceful protesters were not wearing masks, certainely were not social distancing, so, spikes may not be totally tied to states re-opening to soon, maybe a good deal of the blame is to all the protesters not adhearing to the protocals, guess it is ok if you are protesting, not ok if you are at the beach.

 

I don't think we watched the same thing in that case. For example in Jacksonville even the police stated that the vast majority acted peacefully and then a couple hundred stuck around and started causing trouble. I'm sure we can find more examples if we want to be honest about what happened.

 

The problem I see with this is the repeated urging from scientists that they believe most transmission occurs indoors with prolonged exposure. That would point much more towards bar & club patrons, house parties, etc. than outdoor protesters. I would guess though that it's probably more like a mixture of both. I also saw quite a few protesters wearing masks.

 

I'd say an easy majority were wearing masks (hell, the criminal instigators especially were wearing masks to hide their identities, but the majority of the peaceful protectors were also wearing masks). But even if a majority were wearing masks, indeed there was a sizable number in absolute terms not wearing them. From the minute the protests started I remember pointing out people who weren't and thinking it was an outbreak waiting to happen, making jokes about their lack of social distancing, etc. So no doubt it will probably contribute to future spikes. I'd be shocked if they didn't.

 

my point, a couple hundred started trouble, multiply that by all the various cities, and ask, if protests were peaceful, why were stores burned, stores looted, businesses destroyed? i know this most likely does not belong on this thread, but people who refuse to believe a good segment of the population is just looking for protests to do what i described, they are, in no other words, horrible people.

 

My counter would be to take the thousands at every protest that didn't destroy property or steal and multiply that by all the various cities. Also what is a "good segment" in a numbers term? It certainly isn't a majority so clearly the protests aren't all about an excuse to destroy things. Just a little perspective.

 

In Arizona, there were about 20 nights of protest and on 2 of them, were there any violence. The other 18 nights were completely peaceful. If you think all the protests were mostly violent, I'd suggest exiting your echo chamber and do some research. There were some violent outbreaks, but the majority of the protests were peaceful.

As for the COVID outbreak among protesters, it's likely it happened, and yes, increased cases would start appearing now. Many of the protesters did wear masks, but not all. It's also impossible to know who was asymptomatic, protesting, and not wearing a mask.

Still, it's more likely the spread has to do with the fact that states like Arizona has been opened for a few weeks, and people are gather in large numbers, indoors, without any masks on. Long-term, indoor exposure with air circulation because the A/C is on almost non-stop will spread the virus more efficiently that outdoors, people in motion, with the air only moving the direction of the wind.

 

true, but the peaceful protesters might also take a little responsability to police among themselves, maybe try to point out and stop the ones who are there to vandalize, it gives their protest a black eye, no pun intended, with the destruction, plus, with all the outcry to defund police forces, you think it will not get worse?

 

if states have regulations and limits on how many people can be in a certain area, and they do not enforce them, or if the owners do not, well, what do you expect? if you have a law, enforce it, otherwise, get rid of it.

 

The stores that got burned and looted didn't necessarily happen where the protests were happening.

There was a fascinating scene in Santa Barbara where a news station (I think it was NBC news?) was covering looting and vandalism going on at a mall in Santa Barbara. There was a cop just standing their watching it, the news literally zoomed in on a cop just standing there watching the looting happen at an upscale shopping mall. Think that embarrassed some people at city hall? That had literally nothing to do with the protests, it was at least blocks away from the organized protest. In reality it was just people taking advantage of the situation knowing the cops weren't responding. Finally after what seemed like an hour of news coverage showing the looters, a squad of police came in and rounded up the idiots who showed up late, one guy went in there with a trashcan and filled it up with Nikes (and with it being on the news for an hour, it's quite likely some of the "late arrivals" got wind of this free-for-all through the news or facebook).

In most places, the police would have been better served to not get all militant with the organized protestors and let them do their thing, which would have freed up resources to actually respond where problems were happening. (with all the unrest it would be hard to do it 100%, but they could have done much better).

 

I saw many examples of protesters calling out and distancing themselves from the violent. Like you said though we should probably take this to another thread.

 

I just wonder how many people you have that can take the time to enforce this. I'm guessing as @96Gatorcise stated if you start having health inspectors shut places down for 2 weeks after a violation they might start to police themselves. I could also see that getting ugly.

 

Do you know what millions looks like? You are seriously contending that millions were rioting and looting? Seriously? I’m going to assume you are either lying out of your ass or you are clueless as to what millions looks like.

2,000,000 is the absolute smallest number that qualifies as millions.

 

Exactly. How could people packed in like the protests actually be violent? There wouldn't even be enough room to wind up your arm to toss a brick. The violent are in the extreme minority in all of these situations (and completely non-existent in most).

 

He’s contending that 1 out of every 200 people in the United States were rioting or looting. People don’t think through their lies very well.

I think Troy Smith just got sacked again.

 

surprise surprise, another come on man with zero thoughtful reply for an innocuous statement. it's just funny at this point.

 

Man, coming from Mr Dislike, that’s funny. You triggered?

 

Good question. It could be that the virus is less potent and that would be exceptional news. OTOH it could be that we are early in that particular timeline. A victim might battle the disease for several weeks or a month before succumbing.