From social distancing to ‘social permission’: Protests upend efforts to contain coronavirus

“During the recent wave of protest gatherings, we’ve witnessed total abandonment of social distancing,” said Stephen Berger, an infectious disease expert, and co-founder of the Global Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology Network (GIDEON).

“The center of a large crowd is no different than a sealed-off, unventilated room filled with potentially infected individuals – many holding large signs which will block the flow of clean air,” Berger told Yahoo Finance.