Suddenly, Public Health Officials Say Social Justice Matters More Than Social Distance

[jmyrlefuller]

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/06/04/public-health-protests-301534

by Dan Diamond
June 4, 2020

For months, public health experts have urged Americans to take every precaution to stop the spread of Covid-19—stay at home, steer clear of friends and extended family, and absolutely avoid large gatherings.

Now some of those experts are broadcasting a new message: It’s time to get out of the house and join the mass protests against racism.

It’s a message echoed by media outlets and some of the most prominent public health experts in America, like former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Tom Frieden, who loudly warned against efforts to rush reopening but is now supportive of mass protests. Their claim: If we don’t address racial inequality, it’ll be that much harder to fight Covid-19. There’s also evidence that the virus doesn’t spread easily outdoors, especially if people wear masks.

But their messages are also confounding to many who spent the spring strictly isolated on the advice of health officials, only to hear that the need might not be so absolute after all. It’s particularly nettlesome to conservative skeptics of the all-or-nothing approach to lockdown, who point out that many of those same public health experts—a group that tends to skew liberal—widely criticized activists who held largely outdoor protests against lockdowns in April and May, accusing demonstrators of posing a public health danger.

(excerpts)

[LMAO]

I have not met a single nurse, either in my hospital or those I see who work in the neighboring hospital, that thinks this lockdown was justified.

Now this story reaffirms that the lockdowns were unnecessary and bullshit