Will all the George Floyd demos lead to a rise in Covid-19 cases? See:

The two most shocking statistics in this pandemic era are these: 40,000 deaths from Covid-19 in the United Kingdom and 110,000 deaths from the virus in the United States of America. Despite all the policy decisions that proved to be either too slow or plain wrong, there is no real explanation for why the UK and US stand out in the world as the two worst-hit nations. But I can tell you the governments of the UK and US better get the pandemic-recovery proposals right or those death tolls are going to shoot up in the next few months. Neither the Boris lot nor the Trump lot should feel proud about the way things have gone. More than 150,000 deaths between us, despite having the finest hospitals on the planet. It makes no sense. But one thing that cannot be disputed is that lockdown has worked. One American study today is claiming that without lockdown in the US there would have been 60 million more virus infection cases. That's huge. So preventive measures were the right way to go. And yet still the UK and US suffered the worst death toll in the world. The big fear now is that in the haste to get economies back in working order, risks are going to be taken, complacency will embed itself in our psyche and those of us who have not been affected personally by ill-health will increasingly think, "Well it's been going on for months and I haven't had it, so it won't happen to me now". I don't want to be pessimistic, I sincerely hope that the virus will get fed up living on this planet and will just vanish eventually, even making it pointless to have a vaccine. But as the streets of so many cities filled over the weekend with tens of thousands of closely-packed crowds demonstrating in the name of George Floyd, the African-American who stopped breathing after having a white police officer's knee buried in the back of his neck while he lay facedown on the ground, you have to wonder how many new coronavirus cases will emerge from those protests. It would be a miracle if some, if not many, of those demonstrators don't end up feeling sick and out of breath. That would be a sad and ironic tragedy. Those interviewed by reporters said it was more important to protest for George Floyd than to worry about getting coronavirus. That's all well and good and noble, but those who do get the virus from demonstrating in such non-social distancing conditions will go on to infect others, and the cases could proliferate. Then what will happen to the lockdown-lifting measures we have all been so looking forward to? Meanwhile, another statistic worth pondering on. The latest poll carried out by CNN in the US states that Joe Biden is 14 points ahead of Trump for the presidency and is looking good in the key swing states. Of course this could all change by November, and under the US voting system it's the number of electoral college votes that counts, not the popular vote. But Trump is a great statistics man, he loves throwing them around in his favour, whether they be true or not. I bet he's far more worried about the 14 figure than the 110,000 figure.