he never RSVP'd for my birthday party either.

frankj1 wrote:

Never-mind. Victor’s surely right. I don’t need to be running afoul of the party line.

CDC tracking information on COVID surely provides data on whether the people who tested positive for the novel virus attended a protest. There prolly a page for Massachusetts mandatory protestor Covid tracing too.

HockeyDad wrote:

thought I posted that MA had tracked protesters specifically and the positives were 1 dot something.

frankj1 wrote:

Not sure how they would track who was and who was not participating in the protests. (personal editorial: If officials did actually track who was at the protests and who was not, that would make me very uncomfortable and it would probably lead to another series of protests protesting the tracking of people who protest).

Bucky wrote:

There's actually a lot of suspicion right now in the groups that were protesting that government agencies have been tracking the protesters. It's pretty easy from cell phone data (thus a lot of groups recommend getting a burner phone specifically for the protests). I don't know if there is any truth to it, nor do I think we've seen any fallout from it.

Apparently the FBI has used a spy plane on the protests recently, and has also been trawling social media and has apparently arrested people for "inciting violence" because of facebook posts:
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/federal-agents-monitored-facebook-arrest-protesters-inciting-riots-court-records-n1231531 

This article describes how they can do it, but does explicitly state there isn't any evidence it is used against protesters at this point:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/06/quick-and-dirty-guide-cell-phone-surveillance-protests 

victor809 wrote:

Not sure how they would track who was and who was not participating in the protests. (personal editorial: If officials did actually track who was at the protests and who was not, that would make me very uncomfortable and it would probably lead to another series of protests protesting the tracking of people who protest).

Maybe they were just going on the word of the individual being tested. Did it encompass all who participated (every man, woman, and child) - not likely. Did these test sites get folks who didn't participate coming in for a free test - probably. Either way, who cares. The more data the better assuming it's clean and real data.

It sounds these short term, localized, free testing pop up sites yielded numbers similar to the numbers for general testing that has been done in the state so far.

The first test results from a pop-up coronavirus testing site targeting people who had attended one of the dozens of police brutality protests held in the greater Boston region are in.

A spokesperson for the Boston Public Health Commission said a total of 1,288 individuals were tested over two days at the facility set up in Roxbury.

The city said 14 of the tests came back positive for COVID-19, or 1.08 percent of the tests.

City officials have previously said they cannot say for sure if they people who were tested at the pop-up site had actually attended one of the large, outdoor protests over the previous days and weeks.

Gov. Charlie Baker on Monday said the state is opening 50 pop-up testing sites for people to be tested for COVID-19.

Anyone who has attended a large gathering in the last two weeks are encouraged to get tested, he said.

https://www.wcvb.com/article/boston-covid-19-testing-results-targeting-george-floyd-protesters/32884377 
Updated: 3:58 PM EDT Jun 16, 2020


"Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker announced Tuesday that the state has received the results of the thousands of coronavirus tests conducted on residents who have participated in protests, marches and rallies since the death of George Floyd a month ago.

He said a total of 17,617 tests were conducted statewide at 52 free, pop-up testing sites set up on June 17 and 18. Of those tested, 2.5% came back positive for COVID-19, which Baker said is “reasonably consistent” with the overall statewide numbers."

https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/gov-baker-to-talk-coronavirus-boston-state-hospital-redevelopment/2147467/ 
By Marc Fortier • Published June 23, 2020 • Updated on June 24, 2020 at 5:21 am

One thing that might fall from a superficial look at the two test reports: increase the number tested (1,300 in a localized population vs 17,600 over a broader population) and you get an increase in positives (1.8% just from a single site vs 2.5% over 52 different sites).

BuckyB93 wrote:

That testing description sounds like ours in California from two months ago. Maybe just outdated.

In my county we have 11 testing sites. Anyone can get tested for free. No doctors note, visit, or referral. Only requirement is to make an appointment and half the sites can do that online versus phone only.

HockeyDad wrote:

I don't think I, or intentionally injected politics into my post. I was just cutting and pasting from a couple sources that I found from a Google search. If there is a political spin it comes from the source that I posted although to me I don't really see it.

I'm still not convinced that we have a firm grip on the true infection rate within the state. Other than these short term open testing sites that they did, there isn't any open to all testing done in MA as far as I understand. Seems like they are still only testing those who think they have some of the signs. This is from the mass.gov site.

https://www.mass.gov/info-details/frequently-asked-questions-about-covid-19#should-i-be-tested? 

"Should I be tested?

If you are a close contact of someone with COVID-19 or you are a resident in a community where there is ongoing spread of COVID-19 and develop symptoms of COVID-19, call your healthcare provider and tell them about your symptoms and your exposure. They will decide whether you need to be tested, but keep in mind that there is no treatment for COVID-19 and people who are mildly ill may be able to isolate and care for themselves at home.

For detailed information, visit the CDC’s webpage: Testing for COVID-19

You can also call 2-1-1, a 24-hour state-supported telephone hotline."

On a completely unrelated but moderately funny story. The WalMarts in MA and border states did a free Rona testing clinic for all their employees who wanted to get tested. I can only speak about the local WalMart here in town how they did their testing. Again, this little "I s#!+ you not" story only applies on how our local WalMart tested their employees and the other Walmart employees in the area that signed up for testing.

Tents like you'd buy and put up in your back yard for a party were erected in the Tire and Lube department (the garage where they install tires and change oil). It was cleaned by, I'm assuming WalMart employees ahead of time so we're all good there. Each person that wanted to be tested where given a tutorial on how the test was going to be done. They were then given the test kit and told them to collect the nose swab sample THEMSELVES in the presence of some certified tester or something.

I'm not making this up. This actually happened.

BuckyB93 wrote:

it did look like I singled you out because I quoted your post, sorry.
Also, I was attempting to limit my post to the protest march that started in Roxbury, not the full daily/weekly results of statewide testing

frankj1 wrote:

I thought there are only more cases because we are testing more. But now we are just testing folks with symptoms? Does this still mean the virus isn’t expanding and the media is blowing things out of proportion?

teedubbya wrote: