Remember the coronavirus?<\/p>\n

The pandemic that upended everyday life and killed more than 104,000 Americans no longer leads the newscasts as protests against police brutality roil major cities, sparking concern the public may let up its guard against the insidious disease.<\/p>\n

Disease trackers already feared a second wave of transmission as businesses slowly reopen and people eager to socialize crowd into beach towns and summertime party hubs.<\/p>\n

Now, people marching or rioting in the wake of George Floyd\u2019s death in Minneapolis aren\u2019t practicing social distancing, either, creating fears that protests will become \u201csuper-spreader\u201d events.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. We\u2019re talking about reopening in one week in New York City and now we\u2019re seeing these mass gatherings over the past several nights that could in fact exacerbate the COVID-19 spread,\u201d New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. \u201cWe spent all this time closed down, locked down, masks, socially distanced \u2014 and then you turn on the TV and you see these mass gatherings that could potentially be infecting hundreds and hundreds of people, after everything that we have done. We have to take a minute and ask ourselves, what are we doing here?\u201d<\/p>\n

The Democratic governor said he shares the protesters\u2019 outrage and noted that America\u2019s struggle with racism extends far beyond the Minneapolis incident. Still, he\u2019s concerned about the gatherings.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow many super-spreaders were in that crowd?\u201d he said, before addressing the fact many protesters aren\u2019t in the most vulnerable age group. \u201cHow many young people went home and kissed their mother \u2018hello\u2019 or shook hands with their father or hugged their father or their grandfather or their grandmother or their brother or their sister and spread a virus?\u201d<\/p>\n

Protesters in cities across America are shouting, potentially releasing virus-laded droplets. And while they are outside, allowing viral particles to drift off, demonstrators are so close together there is plenty of risk.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe single thing that I am most worried about is a lot of these folks aren\u2019t wearing masks or have them down around their neck, and a lot of police aren\u2019t wearing masks,\u201d said Jordan Strauss, managing director for business intelligence and investigations at Kroll, a global risk consultancy.<\/p>\n

Personal protective equipment \u201cis already in short supply, and we are dealing with an extremely transmissible virus hitting minority communities particularly hard,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m concerned about legitimate protesters and their families getting sick.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some violent provocateurs don\u2019t live in the places where protests are happening, so \u201cthey could carry the virus into places it hasn\u2019t been before. It is a huge risk right now,\u201d added Mr. Strauss, who once served as a director at the White House National Security Council specializing in incident management.<\/p>\n

The coronavirus was discovered in Wuhan, China, in December and has spread across the globe.<\/p>\n

It has infected 1.8 million people in the U.S. and killed more than 104,000. Nursing homes have been hit incredibly hard, with federal officials obtaining reports of nearly 26,000 nursing home residents dying from the disease, according to materials prepared for the nation\u2019s governors and provided to the Associated Press.<\/p>\n

As transmission slows across the country, however, states have slowly begun to open up restaurants, shops and offices to get the economy revving again.<\/p>\n

The protests are \u201canother one of these things that we have to balance as a society. We\u2019re balancing economics against prevention of transmission \u2014 in this case, we\u2019re balancing freedom of speech and freedom to protest against epidemic parameters around the infectious disease,\u201d said Michael Mina, assistant professor of epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.<\/p>\n

While some of the protesters are wearing face coverings that can slow transmission, many aren\u2019t. Asymptomatic people can spread the disease, so they might have it and not know it when they hit the streets.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no doubt in my mind that these can become breeding grounds for this virus,\u201d Mr. Mina said. \u201cThe one benefit is that they tend to be outside.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hopefully, he said, breezes and other outdoor conditions will distribute many viral particles away.<\/p>\n

The New York City Department of Health tweeted tips to reduce the risk of spread of COVID-19, urging those who \u201cplan to protest\u201d to wear a face covering, use hand sanitizer and noise-makers instead of yelling. It also advised protesters to stick to small groups and stay at least 6 feet away from other groups.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser told local residents to get tested for the virus after mingling with other protesters.<\/p>\n

\u201cA mass gathering is a mass gathering,\u201d said Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. \u201cWhen people are socially interacting and unable to social distance, shouting, and being sprayed with agents that caused them to cough, it is a simple biological fact the transmission events are going to occur.\u201d<\/p>\n