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A CROWD IS A CROWD IS A CROWD? Remember the criticism leveled at the people who gathered at Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks over Memorial Day? Lockdown-weary vacationers gathered in pools to drink and socialize — without wearing masks or observing social distancing rules to minimize the spread of coronavirus. Public health experts and some in the media denounced their “selfishness” for risking further transmission of the virus.
Then came the Black Lives Matter protests. Large public gatherings were suddenly OK, if held for the best of motives. And now, look at the latest big gathering, Sunday’s “Brooklyn Liberation” event, billed as “An action for black trans lives.” Thousands upon thousands gathered Sunday at the Brooklyn Museum, and social distancing was nowhere to be found. (Yes, many were wearing masks, but if that were sufficient, wouldn’t public health experts endorse gatherings of any size and density, as long as masks are worn? They don’t.) Anyway, this is what the crowd looked like:
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And something else: Missouri is not among the states with the worst outbreaks of coronavirus. Brooklyn, on the other hand, is at the epicenter of the worst outbreak, not just in the United States, but the world. The Lake of the Ozarks photos were taken in a county in Missouri that has between 30 and 40 cases of coronavirus. Brooklyn, which is Kings County, New York, has 59,713 cases. That’s a big difference.
It’s understandable that people in New York City would be stir-crazy and anxious to resume normal life. Of course they are. But public officials are trying to discourage the desire to open up. When a local news site published a photo of crowds drinking and socializing Friday night on St. Mark’s Place in Manhattan’s East Village, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo censoriously tweeted, “Don’t make me come down there…”
The issue is not that New Yorkers shouldn’t get out. They should. The issue is that people should also be free to go to church, to visit hospitalized relatives, to do the necessary things of human life. On Sunday, Washington Examiner columnist Tim Carney, a resident of Maryland, tweeted, “Today, I take my family across the river [to Virginia] for Mass. That’s because my county executive is persisting in his discriminatory ban on (some) religious gatherings.” Why should anyone have to do that?
There has been so much coronavirus-related criticism of gatherings around the country — on Florida beaches, on California beaches, at Lake of the Ozarks — while there has been relatively less concern over risky mass gatherings, like protests for social causes. But if mass gatherings are risky at this stage in the virus’ spread, then they’re all risky — aren’t they?
