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DC mayor: We have to be concerned about virus rebound

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MIAMI (AP) — Rosa Jimenez Cano felt compelled to attend a protest against police brutality to stand with fellow black Americans, then realized afterward how much the coronavirus complicated t…
By KELLI KENNEDY, DANICA KIRKA and PABLO GORONDI
MIAMI (AP) — Rosa Jimenez Cano felt compelled to attend a protest against police brutality to stand with fellow black Americans, then realized afterward how much the coronavirus complicated things.
“This can be kind of a tinderbox for COVID,” the 39-year-old venture capitalist said after attending a demonstration in Florida in response to the death of George Floyd by police in Minnesota.
As more beaches, churches, mosques, schools and businesses reopened worldwide, civil unrest in the United States over repeated racial injustice is raising fears of new virus outbreaks in a country that has more infections and deaths than anywhere else in the world. And it’s not just in the U. S. — London hosted a large anti-racism protest Sunday that certainly violated government social distancing rules.
Rosa Jimenez Cano said she planned to self-quarantine for 14 days, worrying she was perhaps “irresponsible” in attending the protest Saturday night in Miami and exposing herself to “so many people.”
Protests over Floyd’s death have shaken the country from Minneapolis to New York, from Atlanta to Los Angeles. Some have turned into riots and clashes with police, leaving stores in flames and torched cars in the streets.
Floyd, a black man, died May 25 in Minneapolis saying “I can’t breathe” after a white police officer pressed a knee into his neck. It was the latest in a series of deaths of black men and women at the hands of police in America.
Health experts fear that silent carriers of the virus could unwittingly infect others at protests where people are packed cheek to jowl, many without masks, many chanting, singing or shouting. The virus is dispersed by microscopic droplets in the air when people cough, sneeze, sing or talk.
“There’s no question that, when you put hundreds or thousands of people together in close proximity, when we have got this virus all over the streets… it’s not healthy,” Maryland Gov.

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