Civil Unrest During a Pandemic-Notes from Minneapolis

On Monday, May 25, in Minneapolis, George Floyd died after a police officer held his knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck for close to nine minutes. Cellphone video footage of the death spread quickly, and protests began in Minneapolis, other cities across the U.S., and abroad. ASPR TRACIE’s Senior Editor, Dr. John Hick, also serves as an Emergency Medicine Physician for Hennepin County Medical Center, located in downtown Minneapolis. We spoke with him and Seth Jones, Hennepin Healthcare system’s Emergency Preparedness Program Manager, to better understand how days of civil unrest affected emergency management, the emergency department, emergency medical services, and the community hospitals, and how this factored into the hospital’s COVID-19 response.