US lockdown protests may have spread virus widely, cellphone data suggests

[Fozzledick]

Devices associated with protesters travelled up to hundreds of miles after rallies where few precautions were taken

Cellphone location data suggests that demonstrators at anti-lockdown protests – some of which have been connected with Covid-19 cases – are often traveling hundreds of miles to events, returning to all parts of their states, and even crossing into neighboring ones.

The data, provided to the Guardian by the progressive campaign group the Committee to Protect Medicare, raises the prospect that the protests will play a role in spreading the coronavirus epidemic to areas which have, so far, experienced relatively few infections.

The anonymized location data was captured from opt-in cellphone apps, and data scientists at the firm VoteMap used it to determine the movements of devices present at protests in late April and early May in five states: Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Colorado and Florida.

They then created visualizations that tracked the movements of those devices up to 48 hours after the conclusion of protests. The visualizations only show movements within states, due to the queries analysts made in creating them. But the data scientist Jeremy Fair, executive-vice president of VoteMap, says that many of the devices that are seen to reach state borders are seen to continue across them in the underlying raw data.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/18/lockdown-protests-spread-coronavirus-cellphone-data

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. What a surprise.

[Moostache]

2. They. do. NOT. care.

The entire response to this crisis shifted the moment the statistics showing the majority of victims of COVID-19 were either minority, poor or both. As of right now, people are operating under a faulty assumption - or series of them...

They believe the virus only affects 'others' and IF it did get to them that they would beat it because they are not like the 'others' and as a result this is all 'fake'...stupidity and ignorance mixing in a toxic stew, held together with rage and hate and a buried understanding that they have traded reality for a comforting lie and will do ANYTHING to maintain the illusion/delusion.

[Lucinda]

5. +1

[Iliyah]

3. WOW . .

who knew.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

4. It's frustrating

how blindingly obvious it should have been that that might happen, however, the people engaging in the "protests" simply didn't care.

[Midnight Writer]

6. How about the people who are paying for this astroturfed "movement"?

Is spreading the disease an unintentional side effect of "open up" or is it part of the program?

[Hermit-The-Prog]

7. Good question. A national emergency can be used as an excuse to implement fascism.