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Medical science drowned out by angry calls to ‘ReOpen PA’

Politics and passion vs. public health at Harrisburg rally

  • Joseph Darius Jaafari
A protester waves an American flag during a

 Kate Landis / PA Post

A protester waves an American flag during a "ReOpen PA" rally in front of the Pennsylvania capitol in Harrisburg on Monday, April 20, 2020.

Contexters! It’s Tuesday, April 21, which means one thing. It’s PRINCE DAY! It’s the unofficial (started by me) day we honor the passing of one of our greatest rock n’ roll stars: Prince. This day four years ago, having just heard the news of his death, I was sitting on a field at Coachella, sobbing as LCD Soundsystem paid tribute to the artist. Now, every April 21, I get my Insta fam riled up to do a Prince-themed dance party in Brooklyn. Since that won’t happen this year, I’m calling on people to blast Purple Rain out their windows tonight at 8 p.m. — Joseph Darius Jaafari, staff writer

Kate Landis / PA Post

A protester waves an American flag during a “ReOpen PA” rally in front of the Pennsylvania capitol in Harrisburg on Monday, April 20, 2020. (Kate Landis / PA Post)

“Harrisburg” trended on Twitter across the country on Monday afternoon. A protest outside the Pennsylvania capitol that was billed as an economic rally representing citizens who want to go back to work ended up being more of a campaign rally for supporters of President Trump.

The proposed intent of the protest, organized by “ReOpen PA” and several similarly named groups that exist largely as Facebook pages, was to argue that businesses should be able to reopen their doors if they can follow CDC guidelines for minimizing the spread of coronavirus.

The irony is that nobody at the protest was actively abiding by social distancing guidelines. In fact, when I asked one of the organizers why he wasn’t enforcing social distancing to help prove his point, he said it wasn’t his job.

The protesters were a mix of gun owners openly carrying semiautomatic rifles, anti-abortion folks, and more than a few people waving anti-vaxxer and transphobic signs. Few were practicing social distancing, and the mask-wearers were well outnumbered.

And that’s one takeaway: The rally was – more than anything – a rebuke of the guidance provided by medical experts. Many of the people at the protest didn’t believe there was a widespread lethal virus twice as infectious as the flu and at least 10 times as deadly, and they didn’t believe that hospital workers were having issues with treating the ill.

What they overwhelmingly believed was that America is a country of rugged individualism, and that just because the public health is in danger, it shouldn’t limit their ability to go about their lives.

But what was fascinating – and heartbreaking – to watch was protesters talking down to a small group of health care workers who came to counter-protest.

While the main rally was taking place, I went to the end of State Street – the drag leading up to the capitol building – and found a handful of nurses and physician assistants. They came from around the state to tell protesters to go back home.

“They’re not social distancing, they don’t have a mask on,” said Katrina Rectenwald, a 36-year-old registered nurse I spoke to. “And when they all end up sick, our hospital systems are going to end up overwhelmed, which is going to end up in people dying.”

These health care professionals had their message drowned out by yelling protesters, honking horns, and even drivers screaming back at them.

At one point during my interview with Yetta Timothy, a 43-year-old certified nursing assistant, she turned her back away from the crowd of protesters screaming at her and broke down.

“I just can’t believe all this is happening and they’re trying to reopen the state,” she said through fits of tears.

There’s plenty of evidence that the protests – which happened in a handful of other states over the past week– were likely orchestrated by conservative groups that aim to shift the conversation away from public health to politics.

And while the hundreds of protesters who showed up in Harrisburg to thumb their noses at Gov. Wolf’s shutdown order were able to steal the limelight for a few hours, their tantrum doesn’t reflect the views of the majority of Pennsylvanians who recognize that the stay-at-home orders are flattening the curve.

You can read my story here. Other coverage of the rally:

Best of the rest

Photo by Lindsey Wasson / Sounders FC Communications

Public health officials debated canceling major sporting events in Seattle as the coronavirus began spreading widely in the Puget Sound region. Major League Soccer’s Sounders hosted a game on March 7 attended by more than 30,000 fans. Public health experts believe the virus was spreading among asymptomatic people at this gathering and others. (Photo by Lindsey Wasson / Sounders FC Communications)

  • The game and the pandemic: Why was Italy so hard hit in one certain province? Likely, it was because of a soccer match (now dubbed “Game Zero”). In Seattle, several sporting events also contributed to a large number of infections. After poring over hundreds of emails and records, reporters at the Seattle Times and ProPublica found that despite public health officials’ urge to close down large gatherings, events still happened. And while major sports leagues started to push back against closing events, thousands were infected.

  • Astroturf: From the top of this Inquirer story: “A trio of far-right, pro-gun provocateurs is behind some of the largest Facebook groups calling for anti-quarantine protests across the country, offering the latest illustration that some seemingly organic demonstrations are being engineered by a network of conservative activists.” Many will argue that the protest that happened yesterday was a grassroots movement. In fact, it was “astroturfed,” the term used to describe making an online presence only seem organic. As a result, Facebook started closing the groups in an effort to combat fake news. Related: Politico reports that Republicans are calling it censorship; and, Brian Krebs looks at Who’s Behind the ‘Reopen’ Domain Surge?

  • New York, New York. It was one helluva town: The city after its shutdown will likely not be the same for years, writes J. David Goodman with the New York Times. The Big Apple’s booming tech economy and tourism is what helped its financial turnaround in the early aughts under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, but with its main industries demolished, it’s anyone’s guess what the next few years might look like. “I don’t think the New York that we left will be back for some years,” said Gregg Bishop, the commissioner of the city’s small businesses agency. “I don’t know if we’ll ever get it back.”

  • Weeks behind: Facing political pressure from the President, Boeing and other manufacturers are looking to open up shop in the same time frame as European countries. But where Spain, Italy and other countries have been able to snub the infection rates, the U.S. is weeks behind in testing compared to them. The AP has that story. 

  • Is your quarantine feeling like jail? Having a hard time self isolating? Want to see your friends and give a hug? I know it’s hard. (Trust me, I know.) So, how do you get through it? Take some advice from prisoners who had to live in isolation. Related: Keep in mind, though, that your self-isolation — however difficult — is nothing compared to a jail lockdown.

  • The roots of the virus: How does the coronavirus evolve? And how has it evolved from animals to humans? An evolutionary biologist in the New Yorker breaks down exactly how scientists have traced the roots of the novel virus back to specific animals, and how those branches of the virus’s evolution inform medical professionals about the virus’s spread. A fascinating read on a less-known profession.

  • Failed States of America: The coronavirus has exposed deep problems within our country — from medical care to mass incarceration — and it’s also exposed our inability to address those problems quickly in the event of a global health emergency, argues George Packer in The Atlantic. From his piece: “This was the American landscape that lay open to the virus: in prosperous cities, a class of globally connected desk workers dependent on a class of precarious and invisible service workers; in the countryside, decaying communities in revolt against the modern world; on social media, mutual hatred and endless vituperation among different camps; in the economy, even with full employment, a large and growing gap between triumphant capital and beleaguered labor; in Washington, an empty government led by a con man and his intellectually bankrupt party; around the country, a mood of cynical exhaustion, with no vision of a shared identity or future.”

A few more Pennsylvania links:


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