NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio has announced that contact tracers working for the city will not ask Covid19 positive patients if they attended any recent protest.
“No person will be asked proactively if they attended a protest,” said Avery Cohen, de Blasio’s spokesperson.
Instead, tracers will ask positive cases to “recall ‘contacts'” and others that may have been exposed and whether they “live with anyone” in their home.
Mayor de Blasio was vocal about telling people to stay home during the lockdown. There was comparatively little of that imploring during several days of large-scale protests for the Black Lives Matter protests however.
NY State officials have urged all participants of the protests to get tested. But judging by the number of people who have been tested in recent days in NY, so far few people have complied.
The city’s order is raises questions given that part of a contact tracer’s job is presumably to find out exactly where a person who has Covid19 has been in recent days so that the virus’ spread can be traced.
Democratic state officials don’t seem to want to dampen participation in mass protests that have the potential to become violent however, so they are not being aggressive in finding out such information. Instead they are trusting individuals to volunteer it.
“If a person wants to proactively offer that information, there is an opportunity for them to do so,” Cohen said.