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High school students from Brewster, Carmel and Mahopac join together for a Black Lives Matter protest outside the Putnam County Courthouse in Carmel June 3, 2020.
Rockland/Westchester Journal News
So far, New York has dodged a COVID-19 surge following police-brutality protests last month, but concerns remain that the massive rallies seeded outbreak clusters that could linger over coming weeks, experts said.
While New York’s COVID-19 infection rate steadily declined since thousands of demonstrators took to the streets daily after George Floyd’s death on May 25, it remains unclear if there has been a coronavirus spread undetected among the mostly young people in the crowds.
One key reason is many young people suffer milder or no symptoms of COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the virus, which complicates efforts to identify and contain the source of outbreaks, public health experts said.
“All it takes is at least one asymptomatic case that could potentially be a super spreader,” said Dr. Ravina Kullar, an Infectious Diseases Society of America expert.
“To really find out the impact these protests have had takes some strong contact-tracing efforts, and the person who is carrying the virus to really be up front,” she added.
Yet early indications, such as record-low COVID-19 infections and deaths in recent days, suggested the protests unfolded without reigniting the coronavirus pandemic in New York, where more than 24,800 people have died due to COVID-19, the most in the country.
Some potential factors for the unexpected outcome included the fact outdoor protests are less conducive to spreading the virus than indoor gatherings, as well as what appeared to be widespread facemask use by demonstrators, experts said.
Further, curfews imposed after widespread looting during early protests likely limited interactions of many other New Yorkers already adhering to strict social-distancing orders, experts said.
Meanwhile, New York authorities braced for new threats connected to spiking COVID-19 infection rates in 35 states across the country, mandating quarantines for travelers returning from the hardest-hit states and postponing the reopening of malls, gyms and movie theaters.
It all came together amid reports of unmasked people flocking to bars and parties that served as coronavirus feeding grounds, prompting a stern warning Wednesday from Gov. Andrew Cuomo against undoing New York’s progress in keeping COVID-19 cases low.
“On the numbers we’re doing great, but I feel there are storm clouds on the horizon,” he said.
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Why tracing COVID-19 cases to protests is difficult
Throughout June, big cities and small towns across New York saw countless protests against the death of Floyd, a Black man, at the hands of Minneapolis police, as well as systemic racism and inequality in American society.
On June 4, Cuomo urged protesters to get tested for COVID-19, citing how tens of thousands of people spending hours together in close proximity posed a new pandemic threat.
“One person can infect hundreds. If you were at a protest, go get a test, please,” he said at the time, adding “protesters have a civic duty” to limit the spread of COVID-19.
On Wednesday, Cuomo announced that anyone in New York who wants to get a COVID-19 test can do so.
Amid the protests, the number of New Yorkers testing positive for COVID-19 each day dropped by more than 50% in June, falling to 625 from 1,329, state data show.
Yet the prospect that some protesters unknowingly spread the virus will last well into July, complicating efforts to connect outbreaks to the rallies that continued more recently on a smaller scale, experts said.
In some cases, more than 30 days could pass between the initial infection and related clusters appearing on the radar of public health officials due to asymptomatic spread.
And, in many ways, the containment effort hinges on people proactively getting tested and cooperating with contact tracing, which seeks to identify and isolate those exposed to the virus.
In other words, connecting COVID-19 cases to protests is like unraveling a complex web of untold human interactions spanning more than a month.
“I don’t think that this question isn’t being answered because people don’t want to answer it,” said Dr. Cyrus Shahpar, of the Resolve to Save Lives public health initiative based in Manhattan.
He added that authorities are racing to better understand the protest risks before the trail runs cold in the wave of new COVID-19 exposures.
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Westchester County Health Commissioner Dr. Sherlita Amler expanded on the challenge of connecting COVID-19 cases to protests, citing the voluntary disclosures involved in contact tracing.
“It’s very important for people to be honest in their answers because we’re trying to figure out who else might be a risk of spreading the virus,” she said.
State health officials have been collecting data from people who got tested for COVID-19 and self-reported attending one of the protests, said Jonah Bruno, a Health Department spokesman. He said results of the effort were not available Wednesday.
And despite photos showing some New York City police officers without masks during protests, state and city COVID-19 statistics thus far haven’t shown spikes in their ranks.
More than 5,700 members of the NYPD have tested positive for coronavirus during the pandemic, including 46 deaths, according to the most recent NYPD-specific stats available.
New York City health officials didn’t immediately respond to questions about the effort to test and track COVID-19 exposures linked to the protests.
More: COVID-19 testing in New York: If you want a test, you can get a test
How bars, indoor gatherings drive new COVID-19 infections
Meanwhile a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey found 54% of people infected with coronavirus were unable to pinpoint who may have infected them.
Experts said the survey results underscored how community and asymptomatic spread is complicating contact tracing during the pandemic.
More than half of the 350 respondents couldn’t identify a person with COVID-19 with whom they had close contact in the previous two weeks.
“If people don’t know where they got (COVID-19) and they can’t identify it at home or from a family member, they’re getting it from the community,” said Len Horovitz, pulmonary specialist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.
Some experts suggested more people are now unwittingly getting infected in indoor establishments, citing almost daily reports of people at crowded bars and parties without masks.
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Another CDC study this week raised concerns about air ventilation spreading the virus indoors, even when social distancing is observed. It cited how patrons near a Chinese restaurant’s air conditioner all contracted COVID-19 while others were spared.
The troubling developments have prompted New York and other states to rein in reopening plans, such as the postponement of indoor dining in New York City. Other states, such as Texas, ordered bars closed in an attempt to curb outbreaks.
“We have to think about how this disease is transmitted: It’s close contact over an extended period of time,” said Shahpar, contrasting masked protesters to crowded bar-goers violating public health orders.
“I don’t think if I walked into a bar at 1 o’ clock in the morning I would see people wearing masks and social distancing,” he added.
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Adrianna Rodriguez of USA TODAY contributed to this report
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David Robinson is the state health care reporter for the USA TODAY Network New York. He can be reached at drobinson@gannett.com and followed on Twitter: @DrobinsonLoHud
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