Protesting during a pandemic: Black demonstrators could face high risk of COVID-19

As black Charlotteans take to the city’s streets to protest inequities, they face a cruel irony: those very disparities leave them more vulnerable to health complications if they contract coronavirus while protesting.

Health experts warn there’s never been a worse time for thousands to gather. But for many activists — despite the pandemic — there’s never been a better time, with the nation collectively mobilizing around the Black Lives Matter movement.

Charlotte NAACP leader Corine Mack put it this way: “In our minds, we’re going to die anyway if we don’t do something now.”

Thousands of people have turned out over the past two weeks in Charlotte to protest George Floyd’s death at the hands of police and call for an end to racism.

Most protesters are wearing masks, but it’s challenging to practice social distancing while marching. At times, demonstrators have held hands or linked arms and often walk and kneel closely together and shout or sing — creating conditions known to increase the risk of spreading the virus.

But it’s unclear what the impact of that will be on the spread of coronavirus in Charlotte’s black community. Given the time it typically takes for a person to begin showing COVID-19 symptoms and wait for test results, health officials have said it can take at least two weeks for county-level data to show an increased spread of the virus. Even then, it would be difficult to pinpoint a person’s exact infection point.

Though the murder of George Floyd and subsequent protests have turned national attention to the Black Lives Matter movement, experts still say a second coronavirus wave is likely and worry that it could particularly hit hard already vulnerable black protesters.

As of June 9, black residents account for 27 percent of North Carolina’s coronavirus cases and 33 percent of its deaths, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. The pandemic has had a disproportionate impact: black residents comprise less than a quarter of the state’s population.

In Mecklenburg County, 20 percent of people who tested positive for COVID-19 are black and 34.5 percent of those who died from complications are black, as of June 7.

In March, Q City Metro and the Charlotte Observer reported black residents were being disproportionately impacted by the virus, and officials announced that, at that time, about half of those dying from coronavirus in the county were non-Hispanic black people. The health department attributed this to “persisting disparities” such as poor access to health care and other inequities, which are common throughout the U.S., not just in Mecklenburg County.

Additionally, county officials previously came under fire for shielding more demographic information than legally necessary about who had COVID-19 — and potentially missing opportunities to raise public awareness early on.

Mecklenburg County Health Director Gibbie Harris said Tuesday recent coronavirus increases couldn’t be linked to a specific population or event, such as a protest, and that she has received guidance from the state that would allow anyone who’s attended protests in Mecklenburg County to be tested.

It’s unclear whether county health officials have specific plans to deal with a possible spike in cases in the black community. Neither Harris nor a health department spokesperson returned phone calls from the Observer this week.

Inequities in black communities make them more susceptible to becoming infected by and dying from the coronavirus. Black Americans have higher rates of chronic conditions like hypertension and diabetes that make the virus more deadly. They also have less access to healthcare than other populations, and also are more likely to live in high-density communities which face an increased risk for spread of the highly-contagious coronavirus.

Dr. Ophelia Garmon-Brown, a local physician and community leader, said that her main concern is that the young people who are out protesting might bring the illness back to their homes and infect their parents and grandparents, who have a greater chance of dying to coronavirus.

“And then the stress that many older African-Americans are under and have been under all their lives, their immune systems are affected by that stress in a negative way,” she said.

She said though she supports the right of citizens to protest, she encourages protesters to do it safely so people won’t “be hurt unintentionally.”

“I am concerned a possible uptick could be significant in the African-American community, and that it’s kind of ironic,” Garmon-Brown said. “What we’re trying to do with the protests is raise issues of racism and disparities, but because we live with disparities, we are potentially going to be more prone to increased deaths particularly in our elderly because of the protests.”

Mack said the organization has been passing out masks and hand sanitizer at the protests to keep everyone safe, but she, too, is concerned about a spike in cases. However, she thinks protesters in Charlotte made the necessary decision to take a stand, despite the pandemic.

Garmon-Brown also said the use of tear gas by police could worsen health risks.

The city council removed money Monday from next year’s police budget for riot control agents like tear gas after a violent incident last Tuesday when police blocked in protesters and set off several canisters of a chemical agent. However, it’s unclear how much the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department already has in its inventory. Law enforcement’s use of tear gas and other agents that affect the respiratory system has been controversial across the country, and experts say tear gas is especially dangerous during a pandemic.

“I think that tear gas and all that should be a last-ditch effort,” Garmon-Brown said. “And protesters definitely shouldn’t be pent in or locked in when tear gas is set off. They should be able to move away from the offending agent and not exposed for an extended period of time.”

Not only does tear gas irritate the respiratory system and cause those who inhale it to severely cough, tear gas can also cause long-term lung damage, which can make coronavirus symptoms much more deadly.

“[The police] are causing lung damage in the middle of a pandemic which causes black people to have the worst outcomes,” Mack said. “That tells me they don’t care about us at all.”

If there is an uptick of coronavirus cases in Charlotte’s black community, Mack is distrustful of information disseminated by city officials and wary of the city’s ability to handle it. But she said the protests are needed.

“For black people, we know every single day that someone is going to die at the hands of the police, and the way George Floyd was killed was too much for us to take,” she said. “It’s the reality that black lives do not matter in this country, so people made a decision. They said, ‘I’m going to be safe, but I’m going to do something because my life is in danger.’”

This story was originally published June 11, 2020 at 2:47 PM.