The Colombus Public Health Department is warning people who participated in George Floyd protests to monitor themselves for symptoms after a participant tested positive for COVID-19. Thousands have attended protests in downtown Colombus over the past seven days.
Despite being symptomatic on May 27, the positive individual still attended protests in Downtown Colombus beginning May 28.
Colombus Public Health Commissioner Dr. Mysheika Roberts is asking anyone experiencing symptoms to stay home.
Columbus Public Health is aware of a confirmed case of #COVID19 in an individual who was symptomatic on May 27, but still attended the protests in downtown Columbus. If you attended the protests, please monitor for symptoms and get a free COVID-19 test if you become sick.
— Columbus Health (@ColumbusHealth) June 3, 2020
Public health experts have continually warned about the greater health risks the coronavirus poses to the African American community. Despite that knowledge, thousands of Black Lives Matter protests are continuing to take place during the ongoing pandemic. Protesters have largely failed to practice social distancing, a fact overshadowed by the widespread violence and looting that has erupted throughout the country.
Back when reopening protests took place, an MSNBC panel accused white people of not caring about the lives of certain minorities.
"One thing I think is really interesting is how these protests have started after all the headlines last week or so about the disproportionate effect the virus is having in communities of color, and so when I look at these protests what I see are a bunch of white people essentially saying 'oh, it's affecting those people, so why do I have to change my life for them,'" Renee Graham, an opinion writer for the Boston Globe, told host Joy Reid.
Senior writer for The Root, Michael Harriot, told Reid that the reopening protestors are saying "quite clearly" that they "want more black and brown people to die."
"If you want the government to open up, then you want more black and brown people to die," Harriot added.
Liberals used the coronavirus then to accuse their political opponents of ethnic cleansing, but here they are jeopardizing the lives of the very people they claim to care about by defending mass protests all across the country.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 23 percent of coronavirus deaths in the U.S. have been African Americans, even though African Americans make up roughly just 13 percent of the U.S. population. More than 109,000 deaths in the U.S. have been attributed to the coronavirus.
Given the harm to the African American community posed by the coronavirus -- and given the widespread looting and violence, including the killing of a 77-year-old African American man and former police captain -- surely there is a less harmful way to address the problem of police brutality.