By Gavin Mackintosh-
U.S anti- lockdown protesters had their devices tracked by a campaigning group studying their movements.
The Committee to protect Medicare campaign group studied several mobile devices and concluded they may be spreading Covid-19 cases after travelling hundreds of miles to events, returning to all parts of their states, and even crossing into neighbouring ones, a U.S campaign group has said.
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An anonymised location data captured from opt-in cellphone app and data scientists at the firm VoteMap extrapolated the movements of phone devices present at protests in late April and early May in five states. They were Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Colorado and Florida.
The group revealed their findings after creating visualisations that claim to have tracked the movements of several devices up to 48 hours after the conclusion of protests.
The findings of one visualisation reveals movements of protesters in Lansing, Michigan, after a protest on the 30th of April in which armed protesters stormed the capitol building and state police were forced to physically block access to Governor Gretchen Whitmer. The observers noted that devices which had been present at the protest site can be seen returning to all parts of the state, from Detroit to remote towns in the state’s north.
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Another device noted by the group visible in the data travelled to and from Afton, which is over 180 miles from the capital. Others reached, and some crossed, the Indiana border, the group said.
The revelation submitted to the U.S branch of the Guardian revealed that in the 48 hours following a 19 April “Operation Gridlock” protest in Denver, devices reached the borders of neighbouring states including Wyoming, Nebraska, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Utah.
Also revealed from the observation is that in Florida on 18 April, devices returned to all parts of the peninsula and up to the Georgia border. In Wisconsin on 24 April, devices returned to smaller towns like Green Bay and Wausau, and the borders of Minnesota and Illinois.
In North Carolina in late April, one of the leaders of the state’s anti-lockdown protests tested positive for Covid-19 but recklessly said she would attend future rallies.
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