Fun Fact: In relation to the population, the protests were actually so small that, unless there is contact tracing committed to discovering this specific truth, we will *never* know for certain if they were harmless or if they were spreader events.

"Obviously the protests didn't spread COVID"

We don't know that.

Unless your city does contact tracing and asks specifically about protest attendance, you're guessing, hopeful that your team will not be implicated in this.

"Obviously the protests have made an impact in these surges"

We don't know that.

Unless we have a *lot* of contact tracing info, we have no idea if there was enough transmission to hit a tipping point.

The only thing we can say is protests did raise the transmission risk.

The reason we can say this is because it is tautological.

Being close to other people, masked or unmasked, raises transmission risk. It just does.

The question is "Were the protests worth the elevated risk of COVID transmission?"

And that's a subjective question that we have to answer for ourselves. But then we have to apply that subjectivity to others and that is where the fights start.