Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests raised concerns, at the time, that they would cause COVID-19 cases to spike. Some people used these concerns to discredit the protests and the public health experts that supported them.
However, the protests did not raise COVID-19 rates and called the notion of public health into question. It is becoming increasingly apparent that we can no longer ignore social determinants of health, such as poverty or racial discrimination.
Police brutality is a public health issue, and so is racism. Furthermore, in some communities, a police presence makes the members of those communities feel anything but safe.