WASHINGTON _ A month after mass demonstrations against racial injustice filled city streets across America, epidemiologists and a McClatchy analysis of COVID-19 case data suggest the protests did not lead to dramatic increases in transmission, providing further insight into what does _ and doesn't _ lead the coronavirus to spread.
To the surprise of some epidemiologists, the surge of protests following George Floyd's death in Minneapolis police custody on May 25 hasn't consistently led to a surge in COVID-19 cases in the cities where those protests occurred.
Some metropolitan areas such as Miami, Dallas and Boise, Idaho, have seen increased case counts and "positivity rates" _ the percentage of coronavirus tests that come back positive _ since May 25. But other cities that had some of the largest protests, such as Minneapolis, Chicago, Washington and New York, have actually seen a decline in case counts and prevalence of the virus, as measured by the percentage of positive tests.
