A North Carolina doctor strongly cautioned his state's governor from caving in to President Donald Trump's wishes for a packed Republican National Convention.
The president has threatened to move the RNC this summer from Charlotte if Gov. Roy Cooper did not ease coronavirus restrictions to allow for a full-scale event, but a local physician told WCNC-TV that Trump's plan was unreasonable.
"What do we know about infections?" said Dr. Jeffrey Galvin, of the Vitality Medical Wellness group. "Infection requires two things, exposure plus time."
Trump wants to pack 20,000 Republicans, journalists and others into Spectrum Center in August, but Galvin said infected people shed small amounts of the virus every time they breathe.
"Not a huge amount, but a small amount," he said. "Most of it is going to come out and fall onto my lap."
That poses a health risk to everyone around an infected person, he said -- and a political convention poses a huge risk.
"What is a convention of 20,000 people in the Spectrum Arena?" he said. "Those conventions usually last all day, people are shoulder to shoulder and they're yelling and screaming. It's a recipe for disaster, and there's no way that the state (or any state) can guarantee it."
Galvin urged Republicans to hold their convention outdoors in a larger space to allow for participants to spread out, and he said a virtual convention would be even safer.
"You have to realize a lot of these people are probably going to be older, so there's going to be a lot of people with chronic medical problems who are going to be high risk," Galvin said. "It's an incredibly bad idea."