US protesters who decried COVID-19 as fake and an attack on their liberties have been carrying the disease back to their remote communities.
And it was their use of the same mobile phones they accuse of being channels of contagion that gave them away.
Anonymous SIM-card location data reportedly shows thousands of demonstrators travelling hundreds of kilometres to make their point in regional capitals. They then return to their heartland communities - reinvigorated in their purpose, but also carrying the virus.
Such protesters are a small but vocal minority within the US. But anti-vaccination, anti-quarantine and anti-5G phone tower movements have begun to merge their efforts into larger gatherings.
In one instance, more than 70 people who attended an unauthorised 1500-strong rally at the Wisconsin State Capitol in late April later tested positive for COVID-19.
Another event in Lansing, Michigan, saw armed protesters break into the State Capitol - forcing police to intervene physically. Participants were tracked travelling up to 300km afterwards - despite movement restrictions.
"There was a company that put a geofence around the first protest, and it does appear to correlate with where we saw some COVID activity soar," Governor Gretchen Whitmer told local media last week.
According to US ABC news, she later told US Vice President Mike Pence: "What we have seen from initial protests here is that we've got COVID-19 spreading in rural parts of our state, from which people travelled."
DISEASED HEARTLAND
Medical tracking shows the pandemics rippling out from US cities and into the surrounding countryside.
and trump cheering them on on tweeter
https://www.bigrigs.com.au/news/us-p...virus/4021947/
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