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"The View" co-host Meghan McCain expressed frustration on Wednesday that Drs. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx didn't do more to warn about the danger of mass protests spreading the coronavirus.
"Even for people like me, I have a lot of questions for Dr. Fauci," she said. "I am 100 percent willing to say on television I do not have faith and trust in Dr. Fauci in the way that I did, and it has to do with the fact that we have conversations on this show ... about people wearing masks and being responsible, and we're all in agreement on that.
"And then I see a giant Pride March in Chicago, which is great that people are out marching in any other time other than a pandemic right here — and we're not supposed to be this close together. I'm not supposed to be within six feet of people. So, the narrative continues to confuse me," she added.
She added that she thought experts like Fauci and Birx, both of whom serve on the administration's coronavirus task force, should have been "screaming bloody murder" over mass protests and riots.
'VIEW' CO-HOSTS CLASH OVER PROTESTS, TRUMP RALLY DURING COVID-19: 'SIGNIFICANT DISTINCTION'
McCain's comments echoed conservative claims that the media and others were applying a double standard to regular activities while giving protesters a pass during the pandemic.
"The View" previously got into a heated argument over the issue as McCain's co-hosts panned President Trump's decision to hold a rally in Oklahoma.
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McCain said: "Is COVID a pandemic – that we all have to stay sheltering and inside – or is it not? Or is it only a pandemic if you are a conservative and you're a Trump supporter and then you have to stay inside and you're a hypocrite if you sign this waiver and you go into his rally, but you're not a hypocrite if you go protest someplace else? It's very confusing."
Co-host Whoopi Goldberg argued that people shouldn't be participating in either Trump rallies or ongoing protests. But co-hosts Joy Behar and Sunny Hostin were more defensive, claiming that Trump's rally was worse because it was indoors and the president was actively inviting people to the event.
Besides restaurants and bars, people have gathered en masse on streets nationwide for protests surrounding the death of George Floyd. News reports indicate, however, that the protests didn't drive a significant increase in cases. Health officials in Oregon and the San Francisco Bay area have reportedly discounted a link between the two.
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Authors from a National Bureau of Economics study similarly concluded: "[W]e find no evidence that urban protests reignited COVID-19 case growth during the more than three weeks following protest onset."
University of Denver economist Andrew Friedson, who authored the study, speculated that the protests could have had a limited impact since they took place outdoors. “It could be the fact that these events were outdoors. It could be that [protestors] are wearing masks. It could be the fact that these events are being driven by young people, and young people are much less likely to be symptomatic," he reportedly said.