Mentions of "social distancing" soared into the media lexicon in mid-March and accounted for 1-4% of daily airtime on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News through the end of May. The George Floyd protests briefly shifted media attention away from the pandemic, but when it returned, the round-the-clock imagery of massive crowds during the protests shifted media attention away from social distancing and relegated it to relatively stable low-bore mentions over the following months, disappearing nearly altogether since the election.