As the pandemic took hold, most epidemiologists have had clear proscriptions in fighting it: No students in classrooms, no in-person religious services, no visits to sick relatives in hospitals, no large public gatherings.
So when conservative anti-lockdown protesters gathered on state capitol steps in places like Columbus, Ohio and Lansing, Mich., in April and May, epidemiologists scolded them and forecast surging infections. When Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia relaxed restrictions on businesses in late April as testing lagged and infections rose, the talk in public health circles was of that state’s embrace of human sacrifice.
And then the brutal killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis on May 25 changed everything.
Soon the streets nationwide were full of tens of thousands of people in a mass protest movement that continues to this day, with demonstrations and the toppling of statues. And rather than decrying mass gatherings, more than 1,300 public health officials signed a May 30 letter of support, and many joined the protests.
That reaction, and the contrast with the epidemiologists’ earlier fervent support for the lockdown, gave rise to an uncomfortable question: Was public health advice in a pandemic dependent on whether people approved of the mass gathering in question? To many, the answer seemed to be “yes.”
“The way the public health narrative around coronavirus has reversed itself overnight seems an awful lot like … politicizing science,” the essayist and journalist Thomas Chatterton Williams wrote in The Guardian last month. “What are we to make of such whiplash-inducing messaging?”
Of course, there are differences: A distinct majority of George Floyd protesters wore masks in many cities, even if they often crowded too close together. By contrast, many anti-lockdown protesters refused to wear masks — and their rallying cry ran directly contrary to public health officials’ instructions.
And in practical terms, no team of epidemiologists could have stopped the waves of impassioned protesters, any more than they could have blocked the anti-lockdown protests.
Still, the divergence in their own reactions left some of the country’s prominent epidemiologists wrestling with deeper questions of morality, responsibility and risk.
I’ve been wondering when someone would broach this difficult issue. How is it that epidemiologists felt (still feel) it was their scientific duty to warn people not to protest the lockdowns or go to a Trump gathering but support the Black Lives Matter protests?
I did not understand why they could not say they personally supported the moral cause of the BLM demonstrations and still say that it was a bad idea to gather in large crowds in the middle of the pandemic. They weren’t going to stop them, of course. People were going to hit the streets either way. But as scientists, I felt they should have maintained their credibility in the middle of this horrible pandemic over everything else and frankly, I think the fact they didn’t has contributed to the way people reacted in all these hot spots.
Whether or not the protests end up having spread the virus isn’t the point. They didn’t tell the truth about the potential dangers and now a whole lot of people, and not just people with political axes to grind, don’t respect what they say. I’ve heard countless rightwingers point out the hypocrisy and plenty of young partiers clearly don’t think the disease is any threat to them.
There were millions of voices rising up to support BLM. Scientists could have done so also but they should have been telling the truth which is that gathering in large crowds, even masked, where there is shouting, tear gas, and plenty of people going home to loved ones who may have health problems or other vulnerabilities, is potentially dangerous. They have a special responsibility and I think they mostly failed. In fact, there are a few public health experts on TV that I no longer listen to at all because of the way they twisted themselves into big, fatuous pretzels rather than tell the truth from a scientific standpoint.
According to this article, they knew what they were doing. They just believed that the BLM cause was so important that they wouldn’t say so. And now, whether or not the BLM protests contributed to this big spike in cases among young people directly, the message they sent was clear: young people don’t have to worry. If there’s something they think is more important than protecting their own health and loved ones, go right ahead and do it.
It turns out that a whole lot of young people think drinking in bars and at huge parties is more important. And they are spreading this thing everywhere.
Scientists are all we really have to guide us through this pandemic. Black Lives Matter didn’t need them to lie or obfuscate about the effects of the virus. Their moral cause was righteous and people were going to make their own decisions about whether to bear the risks. But by failing to be clear about those risks, and in many cases sweeping them completely under the rug, these scientists sent the message that what they say is contingent upon their sense of morality, not scientific reality. And we have enough of that coming from politicians.
The virus has no morals. It is a mindless organism looking for a host wherever it can find one. And somebody has to keep us focused on that reality. If it isn’t the scientists, who is it?