I appreciate your attempt to have an actual discussion about this. I know based on some of your subsequent posts that you'd be tempted like to call me a "flat-earther" or something, but you took the time to address and question my points. So thanks for that.
I was limiting that post to Los Angeles, because that is where I live, and that is what I know first hand. I can tell you that despite what you may have read, there are no bars open for business and there have not been since March 12. And the restaurants that were allowed to open a few weeks ago, a majority of them chose to wait until we were further along in our phased reopening. Or some were opening the day the protests started, and a few of these were destroyed and looted, so they shut down again. Plus many restaurants and bars did not even have a staff that could start working again, because most were laid off, and they are making similar or more money from unemployment than working at the restaurant or bar.
Everyone wears masks here whenever they are outside. You even see people riding their bike, by themselves, wearing a mask. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone not wearing a mask. And now they are mandatory again, thanks to the "spike" or "surge" or whatever you want to call the increase in positive tests over the last 10 days or so. So, I look at the numbers, and seed the rise in positive cases. I watched 20,000 people marching down Hollywood a few blocks from where I live. The VAST majority of these people were in their 20s. Many of the new cases are also skewing much younger as well.
And yes, I am speculating here, but I do believe many of these people were not working, were unemployed, and were out of school due to the previous 3 months of lockdowns. So after being browbeaten about COVID for all this time, suddenly, you are free to come out and protest all day long side-by-side with friends you may not have seen in a while, and this was a signal that many felt the COVID scare was over, especially among this lower risk group of people. The media instantly stopped talking about cases and deaths and comorbidities.
The larger point is, we received a new order on Sunday closing all beaches and bike paths (again, WTF?), limiting any gatherings to only your immediate family, and all fireworks were prohibited. I understand the last one because you want to prevent large gatherings, but after allowing MASSIVE gatherings for over two weeks, and then claiming that protests had no effect on this current surge, despite the timing, I want to know the logic behind any closure that prevents people from going outside. You can't have it both ways. If protests had no effect on the spread because "outdoor transmission," then be consistent for fucks' sake.