“It’s one thing to protest what day nail salons are opening,” New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said the other day. “And it’s another to come out and peacefully protest about somebody who was murdered right before our eyes.”
This was Murphy’s justification for keeping the arbitrary category of “nonessential” businesses closed and limiting public gatherings while cheering large, densely packed public protests that may spread the coronavirus infection and make his costly, life-altering business closures pointless.
Murphy’s statement reveals an ignorance of, or contempt for, science. Surely, George Floyd’s killing cries out to heaven, but the rightness of one’s cause does not provide immunity from infection.
If one were to judge only by the amazing recent transformation of opinion, it would be difficult not to conclude the opposite. The same people who snitched to the police about neighbors having company the other week are now making excuses for gatherings much more likely to spread the virus, and to spread it much more widely.
Murphy and other governors have kept businesses closed this long, arguing that it will prevent the spread of COVID-19 to vulnerable people. Stay home, or keep your business closed, the government has commanded, lest you kill someone’s grandma. This may not have been the best policy, but at least it was logical — until now.
But neither peaceful nor violent protests lend themselves to social distancing and hygiene. Chanting and marching and waving could have been choreographed to spread infectious disease. Most protesters are flouting rules that we were told were essential only five minutes ago. And who can blame them? Either way, any voluntary efforts by protesters to keep social distance are just as possible among people engaged in other activities, including commerce.
Protests are, in some respects, worse than other gatherings of people that remain illegal in New Jersey and other jurisdictions. That includes commercial gatherings, which are “nonessential” according to some bureaucrat’s view but essential to each business owner’s and employee’s hope of avoiding poverty and long-term joblessness.
If mass protests and rioting in major cities do not lead to a resurgence in COVID cases, it would be more evidence that states can safely end lockdowns.
Murphy acknowledged that he’ll “probably get lit up by everybody who owns a nail salon in the state.” But that’s an understatement. He was trivializing not just nail salons, but the ability of all business owners and employees in certain industries, such as restaurants and brick-and-mortar stores, to make a living.
Consistent enforcement of the law is a necessary condition for people to respect and obey it. But this is about more than just consistency; it’s about the specific nature of infectious disease. How many times have we heard angry scolds make this point to those who forget their masks or take “unnecessary” walks about their cities? The widespread coronavirus exposure generated by protests is rendering futile all of the excessive pandemic restrictions supposedly protecting grandma.
We do not want to see Murphy stop peaceful protests. We want to see him and other governors lift remaining restrictions. His position, in which the clownish New York City mayor, Bill de Blasio, has joined him, is simply untenable. If you’re going to wink and nod to protests because you support the cause, then at least have the decency to stop hiding behind science when you tell people they must wait weeks or months more before they can work for a living.
If stopping the spread of the coronavirus takes a back seat only to activities you deem important or politically salutary or righteous, then you don’t believe in science. You’re not serious about the virus, and your state and nation should just drop your charade.
