Life Comes at You Fast: Anti-Lockdown Protester Tests Positive for COVID-19

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Screenshot: Drone video of the ReOpen N.C. protest in Raleigh on April 21 (CBS 17)

As the battle between medical science and people who think protection from a deadly virus is “tyranny” rages on, an anti-lockdown protest leader in Raleigh, N.C., recently tested positive for the same sickness that the lockdowns are meant to shield people from—the same lockdowns she has spent time protesting against.

CBS 17 reports that Audrey Whitlock, a leader of the ReOpen NC group, revealed in a Facebook post on the group’s page Sunday that she has tested positive for COVID-19. Whitlock wrote that she was ending her quarantine and called herself “an asymptomatic COVID19 positive patient.”

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According to Vice, Whitlock started ReOpen NC with two other women on April 7 and by April 21, she had already helped organize two Raleigh protests demanding Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper lift his stay-at-home order, which was originally set to expire on April 29 but was extended until May 8.

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Whitlock said she had exhibited coronavirus symptoms back in January but hadn’t gotten herself tested for the virus until early April when she was administered a COVID-19 test as well as an antibody test—which she tested negative for.

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You would think the sheer irony of protesting against measures meant to protect people from COVID-19—the very virus she ended up being infected with—would be enough to make Contagious Karen see the error of her ways, but you would be giving too much credit to a privileged white woman who would rather be sick and possibly infect other people. Contagious Karen obviously objects to being told “no” by the government, and she is now using her plight to somehow reinforce the idea that statewide lockdowns violate civil liberties.

“The reality is that modern society has not been able to eradicate contagious viruses,” Whitlock wrote on the ReOpen NC Facebook page. “A typical public health quarantine would occur in a medical facility. I have been told not to participate in public or private accommodations as requested by the government, and therefore denied my 1st amendment right of freedom of religion.”

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While it is unclear where she is getting her information from or what religion she thinks she’s being denied the practice of, it is abundantly clear she doesn’t understand that she wouldn’t only be putting herself at risk by attending large protests while testing positive for a contagious and deadly virus.

“The community has a right to defend itself against deathly disease. So that’s what’s on the side of the state. On the side of the individual, of course, it’s a major intrusion on a person’s right,” UNC law professor William Marshall told CBS. “When you have the potential of infecting others, you’re not just talking about putting yourself in danger. You’re talking about putting other people in danger, and that’s when I think the state has a legitimate interest to act to prevent the spread of that disease.”

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And that is the black-ass bottom line. Protest being an Outbreak monkey, Contagious Karen. Don’t protest something that protects the health and lives of everyone around you—including yourself.