When the massive Black Lives Matter demonstrations began in May, it was unclear how they might impact the country’s ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
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“Our findings suggest that any direct decrease in social distancing among the subset of the population participating in the protests is more than offset by increasing social distancing behavior among others who may choose to shelter-at-home and circumvent public places while the protests are underway,” the report reads.
“Cities which had protests saw an increase in social distancing behavior for the overall population relative to cities that did not,” the report notes.
“In addition, we find no evidence that net COVID-19 case growth differentially rose following the onset of Black Lives Matter protests, and even modest evidence of a small longer-run case growth decline.”
Basically, during the massive protests, enough people stayed home to avoid running into the massive demonstrations that it could have actually helped limit the spread of the virus.
