Dr. Birx: Rioters Have Successfully Destroyed 70 COVID Test Sites

In addition to promoting spread of the coronavirus through their endless gatherings, protesters are also responsible for destroying more than 70 coronavirus testing sites in several major cities, setting back the U.S. public health response immeasurably. That’s the news from Dr. Deborah Birx of the Trump administration’s coronavirus task force, who urged governors in those states to do everything possible to make sure that urban communities have access to prompt COVID-19 tests.

From The Daily Beast:

Top officials on President Donald Trump’s coronavirus task force told governors on Monday they were worried about a spike in infections due to the mass protests against racial injustice taking place across the country.

Speaking via conference call, a recording of which The Daily Beast obtained, Deborah Birx, Trump’s coronavirus response coordinator, relayed fears that the yelling by protesters could potentially negate the health benefits of wearing a mask, and that the destruction of testing sites at those protests would set back efforts to contain the virus’ spread. Birx said 70 such sites had been destroyed, which had already resulted in an appreciable drop in testing rates there. She advised governors to “scramble now to make sure there is testing available in urban areas.”

While acknowledging that the protests have calmed down from the early days, Dr. Birx said this also came with dangerous implications. Noting that merely shouting could be enough to detract from the protection afforded by a face mask, she said that calmer protests meant that more people – specifically, the elderly – felt comfortable joining them. At a time when the coronavirus is already hitting the black community much harder than any other demographic, it could be a recipe for disaster.

You would think organizations concerned with “black lives” would be more cognizant of that fact.

From the beginning of this pandemic, public health officials have been very clear: You may think you have the right to go out and contract the coronavirus yourself, but your decisions have implications that go well beyond your own body, your own rights. By selfishly refusing to socially distance, wear a mask, and so forth, you are putting everyone else in greater danger and making it much more difficult to defeat the virus.

But the moment these protests – pretty much the DEFINITION of everything they’ve been telling us not to do – began, all that shaming and lecturing went right out the window. Now we’re to understand that racism is much more deadly than the coronavirus. Although, we notice, no one has produced any statistics to prove that more than 100,000 Americans have been killed by unwarranted police brutality in the last three months.  

What can you do at this point but just shake your head and sigh?