There was much consternation over political mass gatherings during the pandemic. When President Trump began holding campaign rallies in June of 2020, health officials described the move as “extraordinarily dangerous”.
Around the same time, a group of 1,000 public health ‘experts’ signed a letter calling for authorities to let Black Lives Matter protests go ahead – on the grounds that “white supremacy” is a “lethal public health issue”. As one epidemiologist put it: “In this moment the public health risks of not protesting to demand an end to systemic racism greatly exceed the harms of the virus.” Okay…
Those who supported the Black Lives Matter protests were in turn accused of hypocrisy by conservatives – given that only a few months before they’d been calling for lockdowns and bans on mass gatherings.
A new paper, published in the prestigious journal Nature Human Behaviour, suggests that all this consternation was misplaced (well maybe not the accusations of hypocrisy, but the rest of it). Eric Feltham and colleagues studied political mass gatherings in the United States, and found that they had no impact on the course of the epidemic.
While many papers have studied political mass gatherings, this one looks to be more rigorous than most. The researchers examined “essentially all” such gatherings that took place in 2020–21 (including Trump’s campaign rallies and the Black Lives Matter protests) at the level of US counties. They focussed on daily deaths as an outcome measure, due to the shortcomings of cases data.
And they carefully matched each county where a gathering took place to a ‘control’ county that was similar in other relevant respects. In particular, they matched counties not only on socio-demographic characteristics, but also on the cumulative death rate up to the point where the gathering took place – thereby adjusting to a large extent for the size of the susceptible population (an inverse correlate of the cumulative death rate).
As noted, there was no evidence that political mass gatherings affected the course of the epidemic. This was true for all the types of gatherings they looked at, and for alternative outcome measures like daily cases.
As to why they had no effect, Feltham and colleagues speculate that it may be because attendees spent much of the time outside and/or engaged in social distancing, and because they were usually required to wear masks. Needless to say, I do not find the second of these suggestions very plausible. (And note: even the mass gatherings that involved indoor voting had no effect.)
The paper’s findings would seem to have quite far-reaching implications: if even mass gatherings don’t affect the spread of the virus, it seems difficult to believe that Western lockdowns had much of an impact. Indeed, the findings are consistent with a model where the course of the pandemic is determined by factors like population structure, with ‘NPIs’ making little or no difference.
Interestingly, the researchers themselves avoid this conclusion, noting that their null result “stands in contrast to the sizeable effects estimated for some other non-pharmaceutical interventions”. Make of that what you will.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Whooda thunk it.
It was obvious at the time, for many of us, that the whole thing was a fraud. But this was an era where standing up to go to the toilet in a bar without a mask would apparently be more likely to spread an airborne virus than sitting down in that same bar without a mask!
I simply said that I was “exempt”.
So did I. I delighted in breaking the rules. I also despaired that normal behaviour had become illegal and something of which I should be conscious…
I said nothing and walked straight past, barefaced and proud (and burning with rage inside).
Same here. Only one person ever “challenged me” …. a friend in the group I was sitting with. I said to her “do you really think standing up without a mask makes me more dangerous than sitting at the table without one does?” She said nothing.
Instead of annulling all the convictions of those involved with the Freedom movement protests TPTB are still going on with prosecutions of events over 2 years ago
I remember one of the anti-lockdown protests began with a show of hands of those who had attended the previous protest and had miraculously survived. A couple of hours later peaceful protestors were brutally assaulted by baton wielding thugs in uniform. The ‘rule of six’ outdoors was a de facto ban on peaceful protest.
The biggest political mass gatherings are “virtually” outside the re-introduced vaccine centres. Physical contact between people queuing is irrelevant: it is the vaccinator at the head of the queue who is mass-spreading heart disease, blood clots and sensitivity to cancer.
Because they “spent time outside and/or social distancing.”
One of the things I felt most sad and angry about was for the countries whose dictatorships imposed mask wearing outside, like in hot Spain on the beach. Aside from whether your personal inclination was to comply or not, I felt this was an outrageous and pointless imposition that I dreaded happening in this country.
I truly hope this study is remembered when they reintroduce the face nappies again.
Ah yes, BLM. Watch these two short clips whilst saying in your head, ”Black lives matter” repeatedly. Experience the juxtaposition. These are the standard of people we’re getting arriving in Europe every single day. I don’t think many of them identify as doctors or engineers, but I’m pretty confident *many* are legit criminals that these countries turfed out and don’t want back.
https://twitter.com/RadioGenoa/status/1708755611960115649
https://twitter.com/RadioGenoa/status/1708542866027368759
‘kin hell.
Come on, it’s obvious …… only SOME political gatherings impacted the plandemic …… the ones which were opposed to the suspension of Civil and Human Rights, lockdowns and the stabbination project.
Those who were pushing the globalist agenda weren’t at all dangerous.
Blimey, has the “lethal threat” of white supremacy killed more people than covid over the last 3 years? I have to assume so, since BLM protests where covid might spread were considered the lesser evil. If so, all white people must be locked down immediately, surely?