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Law enforcement\u2019s brutal response<\/a> to this weekend\u2019s protests may fuel mistrust in the health care system as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to smolder through the country. <\/p>\n

Experts say the danger is especially acute in black communities, which have already been hit hard by the virus, and have historically borne the brunt of discriminatory policing. In the aftermath of the police response to protests, vulnerable communities may be even less likely to trust and cooperate with health officials. That could make it harder to control another wave of illness.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis blatant display reminds folks how bad the devaluing of black lives is, at the height of a global pandemic, and it\u2019s certainly going to lead to less willingness to engage in the system,\u201d says Rachel Hardeman, an assistant professor and health equity researcher at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. <\/p>\n

People already feel less willing to engage with contact tracers in the Twin Cities, according to someone with knowledge of the Minnesota COVID-19 response, who asked not to be named because they didn\u2019t have permission to speak with the media. It\u2019s hard to say yet if data would back up that assessment, they told The Verge<\/em>, but anecdotally, people making calls feel like they\u2019re meeting more resistance. Contact tracers<\/a> identify people with a disease like COVID-19 and figure out who they recently interacted with to stop the virus from spreading. The Minneapolis health department did not respond to a request for comment. <\/p>\n

Large gatherings like protests already make contact tracing difficult. When people at those gatherings encounter police violence, that task gets harder. People who test positive for the coronavirus may be reluctant to tell health officials if they were at protests because they may worry about retaliation. They might not want to identify people they interacted with at the protests for the same reasons. That\u2019s just one way mistrust makes it difficult for public health officials to track down clusters of COVID-19.<\/p>\n

Some statements from officials are only making the problem worse. Minnesota Public Safety Commissioner John Harrington used public health terminology to describe police work and said that officers are \u201ccontact tracing\u201d people who were arrested to find out the groups that they were a part of. The conflation between an important public health activity like contact tracing and investigation of people who have been arrested could make people less likely to trust public health <\/strong>workers trying to trace the disease.<\/p>\n