As we mark the fifth anniversary of George Floyd today (May 25), I want to note another upcoming, related, fifth anniversary.
May 25, 2020, was Memorial Day Monday. As the events were unfolding that afternoon, in what eventually would be renamed George Floyd Square, I was flying in an airplane across the country to attend to a family emergency.
I was one of only about 10 passengers on that commercial airliner, built to carry at least 10 times that number. All of us and the flight crew dutifully wore our mandated masks for the duration of the flight.
In fact, I was one of only 365,000 passengers to fly that day, according to TSA statistics. Passenger volumes wouldn’t cross the 1 million mark until Labor Day.
For the next few nights, I followed events back home as the riots raged on, eventually doing property damage in the billions of dollars. My loved ones remained hunkered down, less than 10 miles from the rioting ground zero.
The next big event occurred just a few days later, on May 31. CNN reported,
A group of health and medical colleagues has penned an open letter to express their concern that protests around the United States could be shut down under the guise of coronavirus health concerns.
The letter – which went on to draw more than 1,200 signatures – focuses on techniques to reduce harm to people protesting racial injustice.
“We created the letter in response to emerging narratives that seemed to malign demonstrations as risky for the public health because of Covid-19,” according to the letter writers.
When the powers that be decided that mass protests and riots were more important than preventing the spread of Covid, I lost all faith in our public health authorities.
But not everyone did. Today, May 25, 2025, I drove down the street passing a man on a nearby walking path, outdoors, still wearing his blue mask.
We didn’t make it, did we?
