(06-27-2020 10:25 AM)Saint3333 Wrote:  They opened up well before Memorial Day is my point. But continue placing no blame on the mass gatherings and riots. The virus politely stopped for those three weeks as of course it is tolerant of certain activities but not others.

A spike doesn't necessarily mean only that a bunch of people get the virus at once; it also often means those initial folks passed it on so that you see exponential community growth. If left unchecked, there's no end to the spike until the virus runs out of victims. In other words, you can't just wait until the numbers hit their high, then look back 2-3 weeks and say, "See, that's THE thing that caused all of this."

This is besides the fact that the most rigorous analysis thus far suggests that the net effect of the protests on COVID-19 spread was minimal. We should all absolutely be open to further studies refuting this, but I'm waiting on a counter that doesn't involve references to "liberal academics" or fall back on the old notion that "you can make numbers say anything."

The jury will be out for a while, maybe forever, on how much impact the protests had on spread of the virus, but it's at best disingenuous for any informed person to point to them as the sole reason for the spike.