Roundup: Brutal Police Tactics Across the Country Risk Spreading The Virus Further
As protesters in states across the country have been making their voices heard against police brutality and racism, the actions of law enforcement officials have increased the risk of coronavirus spreading even further.
1. Twin crises of coronavirus and police brutality have hit Black communities hard
New York Times: ‘Pandemic Within A Pandemic’: Coronavirus And Police Brutality Roil Black Communities
- “The mass incarceration of black people has only worsened the pandemic’s heavy toll on minorities. Black Americans are incarcerated in state prisons at five times the rate of whites, according to the Sentencing Project, a Washington advocacy group. Prisons are breeding grounds for the coronavirus, and jails pose a particular threat, because people cycle in and out, spreading disease in their neighborhoods.” [New York Times, 6/7/20]
Washington Post: The Nexus Between Coronavirus And Protests: The Virus ‘Was The Kindling, And The Police Brutality Lit The Fire.’
- “But Newton said the two epidemics are more closely connected than many protesters realize. ‘The virus exposed the underbelly of the problems we’ve had in health care for decades — a disparity in care that reveals some of the same bias we see in police brutality,’ she said.” [Washington Post, 6/7/20]
2. Curfews, mass arrests, use of tear gas, and kettling is jeopardizing the health of protesters
The Atlantic: Curfews And Arrests Will Inflame The Pandemic
- “The science of how to conduct a perfectly safe mass demonstration in a pandemic is still imperfect, but one thing is clear: The answer is not to clamp down on peaceful gatherings, incarcerate more people, and give everyone less time and space to social distance with draconian curfews. Policing triggered these protests, and the policing, not the protesting, may turn out to be the primary driver of viral transmission during them.” [The Atlantic, 6/5/20]
- “Public-health officials across the country have emphasized the unique danger that a deadly respiratory virus poses to crowded prisons. Many local leaders have released some prisoners early in an attempt to thin out the density of incarcerated people in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As President Donald Trump and some mayors threaten to forcibly contain more protesters, they contradict and undermine the very measures put in places that have only just begun to lower the infection rate in the United States. The more that people are forced into confined spaces, the more opportunity the virus will have to spread. Yet peaceful protesters have been arrested en masse for curfew violations in places including New York, the world’s hardest-hit city, where the death toll from COVID-19 is approaching 17,000.” [The Atlantic, 6/5/20]
- “In addition to the usual constitutional dilemmas of arresting peaceful protesters, these measures carry especially ominous significance during a pandemic, when giving people space is of the utmost importance. Public-health officials across the country have emphasized the unique danger that a deadly respiratory virus poses to crowded prisons.” [The Atlantic, 6/5/20]
Politico: Mass Arrests Jeopardizing The Health Of Protesters, Police
- “Mass arrests of protesters across the country — many held for hours in vans, cells and other enclosed spaces — are heightening the risk of coronavirus spread, according to public health experts and lawsuits filed by civil rights groups.” [Politico, 6/4/20]
- “The use of tear gas and pepper spray, which provoke coughing, adds to the health risk, as do police crowd control techniques like ‘kettling’ — pushing demonstrators into smaller, contained and tightly packed spaces.” [Politico, 6/4/20]
- “‘The police tactics — the kettling, the mass arrests, the use of chemical irritants — those are completely opposed to public health recommendations,’ said Malika Fair, director of Public Health Initiatives at the Association of American Medical Colleges. ‘They’re causing protesters to violate the six-feet recommendation. The chemicals may make them have to remove their masks. This is all very dangerous.’” [Politico, 6/4/20]
ProPublica: Tear Gas Is Way More Dangerous Than Police Let On — Especially During the Coronavirus Pandemic
- “But tear gas is not safe, according to a number of experts interviewed by ProPublica. It has been found to cause long-term health consequences and can hurt those who aren’t the intended targets, including people inside their homes.” [ProPublica, 6/4/20]
- “This would be enough of a problem in normal times, but now, experts say, the widespread, sometimes indiscriminate use of tear gas on American civilians in the midst of a respiratory pandemic threatens to worsen the coronavirus, along with racial disparities in its spread and who dies from it.” [ProPublica, 6/4/20]
- “It puts black communities in an impossible situation, said Dr. Joseph Nwadiuko, an internist and researcher at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. Thirteen of the 15 coronavirus patients in the intensive care unit where he works are black, he said. ‘I worry that one of the compounding effects of structural racism is you’ll see a second wave of black patients, including those who were out there defending their lives.’” [ProPublica, 6/4/20]
- “Tear gas can cause long-term harm, by making people more susceptible to contracting influenza, pneumonia and other illnesses.” [ProPublica, 6/4/20]
- “CS [the chemical in tear gas] is particularly painful when it gets on your skin or in your eyes. (Doctors have advised protesters not to wear contact lenses.) When inhaled, the pain induces people to cough. The compound degrades the mucus membranes in your eyes, nose, mouth and lungs — the layers of cells that help protect people from viruses and bacteria.” [ProPublica, 6/4/20]
- “Tear gas can increase the spread of the coronavirus and might make some people more vulnerable to catching it… Tear gas weakens the demonstrators’ protections against the coronavirus, said Dr. Abraar Karan, a physician at Harvard Medical School who’s working on the coronavirus response. Infections increase when people cough or talk loudly, he said, and even if someone is wearing a mask, when they’re hit with tear gas, they’ll take off the mask as they’re coughing. ‘Not only are you vigorously coughing, you’re vigorously inhaling to try and get more air in.’” [ProPublica, 6/4/20]
3. Police have prevented protesters from receiving supplies that would prevent protesters from getting infected and infecting others
HuffPost: Law Enforcement Seized Masks Meant To Protect Anti-Racist Protesters From COVID-19
- “Law enforcement agents have seized hundreds of cloth masks that read ‘Stop killing Black people’ and ‘Defund police’ that a Black Lives Matter-affiliated organization sent to cities around the country to protect demonstrators against the spread of COVID-19, a disease that has had a disparate impact on Black communities. [HuffPost, 6/4/20]