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Vermont’s health commissioner is concerned. So is the mayor of Burlington.
Both stress the importance of free expression in the wake of George Floyd’s death at the hands of police. They acknowledge the underlying, systemic problems of racism in the country that have compelled Vermonters to protest.
They worry, however, that mass gatherings like the protest last weekend in Burlington that drew more than 1,000 people have the potential to increase coronavirus infections.
Protest leaders say they, too, want to keep the virus in check. They also view the protests as “essential.”
With more protests against police brutality and systemic racism taking place around the country, Centers for Disease Control director Robert Redfield called on people to get tested three to seven days after protesting.
With more protests planned for this weekend, including in several venues in Vermont, officials are advising caution.
Health Commissioner Mark Levine said that officials were calling on protesters to demonstrate in a way that is “Covid-responsible,” such as by wearing a mask and not packing in too closely together.
“Because in addressing and attempting to address the great ills in our society — systemic racism, historic injustice, mistreatment by authorities, and severe health inequities — we do not want to create a greater threat to public health by accelerating the spread of Covid,” he said earlier this week.
Levine praised demonstrators for wearing masks and practicing social distancing, but acknowledged the reality, too.
“I must say there is a fair amount of adherence to facial covering and masks. But clearly, social distancing is a challenge in those settings,” he said.
It’s too early to say nationwide whether the protests will lead to case spikes, said Levine.
“But obviously we all know that within one to two weeks of such close contact, if there were people who were in an asymptomatic state, but able to transmit the virus, we would begin to see outbreaks occur,” he added on Wednesday.
Organizers have been working to manage the dual risks of protests spreading Covid-19, which is disproportionately affecting blacks and Latino nationally, and attracting white supremacists. Protests have erupted around the country after a video came out showing a Minneaoplis police officer on May 25 using his knee to pin George Floyd’s neck down until he died.
At recent protests in St. Johnsbury and Burlington, heated exchanges between police and protesters have thwarted social distancing efforts. In St. Johnsbury, a police officer pushed a woman out of the way.
Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger said he appreciates that Burlingtonians “came out in large numbers” to press local and national officials to address systemic racism. The Burlington Police Department, whose former chief recently resigned after belittling an activist on social media, has faced multiple excessive use of force lawsuits in recent years.
“I do think we are at an incredible moment here where we have these multiple crises going on at the same time,” Weinberger said Wednesday. “As we go forward, I certainly do have concerns about continued mass gatherings.”
Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at John Hopkins University’s Center for Health Security, noted that the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. is “heterogenous,” with some regions being hit much harder, and case counts rising in some states as they fall in others.
“The risk of a mass gathering sparking cases is going to be directly relevant to how many cases are in a community,” he said, adding that “We worry more about those protests that are occurring in places where hospitals still have a lot of a significant proportion of patients in their in their ICU with the coronavirus.”
Adalja also said that “each protest is different,” and someone’s risk for contracting the virus is lower at a less crowded protest where people can more easily socially distance. He also stressed that there is a risk of contracting Covid-19 at a mass gathering even in states like Vermont that have lower case counts.
Public health experts have said that common protest activities like singing and yelling — or police use of tear gas, as has occurred at protests in other states — can increase the likelihood of spreading and contracting Covid-19. Protesters should be mindful about their activities and who they’re coming in contact with over the next two weeks, especially the six or seven days after the event, said Adalja.
“As we move forward in this pandemic, the virus isn’t going anywhere until there’s a vaccine, and there are going to be decisions that people make regarding what risks are tolerable to them, and what risks are not tolerable for them,” he said. “And for many people, fighting racism is a cause that outweighs any risk that they suffer being exposed to the virus.”
One physician, George Benjamin, told the Guardian newspaper that the “risk calculation has changed.”
“I’m African American, and so to me, the risk of being shot and killed by a police officer may, in some communities, be much higher than the risk of getting Covid-19 and dying,” said Benjamin, the executive director of the American Public Health Association.
Ali Dieng, who is a Burlington city councilor and attended last Saturday’s protest in his city, said he thinks fellow protesters took into account the relatively low number of cases in Vermont in deciding to show up. He protested in part to take a stand as an elected official in favor of Burlington — and Vermont — doing more to address systemic issues like the higher incarceration rate of blacks in Vermont.
“I think people showed up to be in support and in solidarity with black people, who the pandemic is taking a huge toll on,” said Dieng. “On top of that, we have white supremacists who are trying to eradicate them and we have police brutality affecting them, specifically.”
Mark Hughes, executive director of Justice For All Vermont, said he ultimately decided not to attend the Burlington rally “because you never know who’s out there,” and over concerns about catching the coronavirus.
“The elephant in the room is that, you know, I’m in an incredibly higher risk rate for contracting, and even dying from, this virus,” he said.
Nationally, although black people make up 13% of the U.S. population, they have accounted for 24% of the Covid-19 deaths, according to the Covid Racial Data Tracker. In Vermont, blacks account for 3% of the state’s Covid-19 cases although they make up 1.5% of the state’s population, with Latino people having the second highest number of Covid cases per capita.
When asked why blacks were contracting Covid-19 at the highest rate, Levine said he was not yet sure why this was happening in Vermont, but pointed to reasons public health experts have cited to nationally. These include a “limited access to health and to wealth,” a higher prevalence of underlying conditions like diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular disease linked to more severe infections, and a higher likelihood of working a frontline job, he said.
Hughes told a personal story to illustrate a point that many black and brown people in the United States do not have the luxury of working from home to minimize their exposure to the virus. His daughter, who works in a nursing home in Iowa, contracted Covid-19 and had to temporarily leave her job as she became seriously ill.
Researchers have also pointed to black people being less likely to receive testing or treatment when they’ve complained of Covid-19 symptoms.The governor’s recently created racial equity task force will be investigating the racially disparate impact of the virus, Levine added.
In an outbreak of at least 34 cases in Winooski, almost every person who has tested positive for Covid-19 was black or Asian, Seven Days first reported. The governor said Friday that none of the cases have been linked to last Saturday’s Burlington protest.
Levine has said that having gone to a protest where someone tests positive “does not mean you’re destined to become infected.”
“If there was a public health reason to call out a specific protest and ask people to come get tested because we were concerned they all might have been in high risk, certainly, we have the authority to do that,” he added. “I don’t foresee that becoming a potential outcome here.”
A group of more than 1,200 public health professionals sent a recent letter calling on officials nationwide not to disband protests “under the guise of maintaining public health for COVID-19 restrictions.”
“White supremacy is a lethal public health threat that predates and contributes” to the disparate impacts of the pandemic, they wrote.
Their suggestions for managing the protests in as safe a way as possible include not using tear gas or other respiratory irritants on protesters; not holding protesters in confined spaces like vans or jails; and preparing for an increase in novel coronavirus infections in the weeks after protests.
Becca Polk, who is helping to organize anti-racism protests in Brattleboro and Springfield, said organizers wanted to show solidarity with those protesting in Minneapolis, and to take a stand after years of people of color being killed by police.
“All of us have been very cautious and made sure that we followed the social distancing guidelines and stayed at home, and didn’t do anything that was non-essential,” she said. “And I think the point is that we find these protests as essential because it’s about people’s lives.”
Experts also say there are important measures that can be taken before and after attending, including washing hands and clothes upon getting home.
For some, the risks are too great for a mass gathering.
Organizers of protests this weekend in Bennington and Morrisville decided to hold car protests so the events would be no-contact. To prepare for last Sunday’s protest in Brattleboro, organizers used chalk to demarcate 6-foot intervals on the Main Street sidewalks, and required that protesters wear masks.
Brattleboro Police Chief Michael Fitzgerald said the protesters had communicated with the police ahead of time, and that the department’s efforts to work with protesters to safely manage the flow of people were in line with how they managed protests in the pre-pandemic era. He added that Brattleboro Police already wear face masks for any close contact interactions.
At a protest Friday planned by Springfield High School students that Polk is helping coordinate, the protesters have another factor to contend with: counter-protesters. There has already been “blowback” on social media from people opposing the protest, said Polk, which led organizers to decide to hold the demonstration in one location rather than march.
Some of the close contact has not involved protesters and police.
In Brattleboro, police arrested a man at Tuesday night’s youth-led protest who yelled racial slurs and made vulgar remarks at protestors. In a separate case, a Milton man was arrested on Tuesday after allegedly threatening a man who said “all lives matter” to St. Albans protesters.
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