New Study Suggests Sturgis Motorcycle Rally Was Responsible for 19% of August COVID-19 Cases

[TomCADem]

Source: Mother Jones

During the month between August 2nd and September 2nd the US recorded 1.4 million new cases of COVID-19. According to a new study, 19 percent of those cases were caused by the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota.

That is not a typo: 19 percent. And God only knows how many more to add to that as infections spread not from attendees, but from the next generation of people infected by the attendees. It’s probably impossible to ever know.

The study’s methodology was relatively straightforward: the authors used anonymized cell phone data to determine where attendees came from and where they returned to. Then they measured increases in COVID-19 in those places. After plotting every county in the US, they found a strong dose-response relationship between increases in COVID-19 and the number of attendees from each county. After a bit of arithmetic, they estimated that Sturgis was responsible for a total of 266,000 new cases in the one-month study period.

The authors also estimate a total public health cost of about $12 billion as a result of these additional infections, which may or may not be entirely accurate. To me, though, that’s hardly a dramatic figure when the total cost of the pandemic appears to be in the range of trillions of dollars. What’s more important is the knowledge that these kinds of superspreader events are what keep the pandemic going and prevent us from ever getting back to normal. Other similar kinds of events might be far smaller than Sturgis, but there are a lot more of them. Shut ’em down!

Read more: https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2020/09/sturgis-covid/

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I wonder how will cases look three weeks from now when we see the impact of Labor Day.

[DonaldsRump]

1. What does the idiot SD governor Kristi Noem say?

[TomCADem]

5. Coronavirus rising in 22 U.S. states (South Dakota 126%)

California, Florida and Texas had a decrease in cases due to lockdowns that were instituted in late July through August. Of course, Labor Day will likely lead to nationwide spike three to four weeks from now in early October.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa/coronavirus-rising-in-22-u-s-states-idUSKBN25X0TD

Most of the 22 states where cases are now rising are in the less-populated parts of the Midwest and South.

On a percentage basis, South Dakota had the biggest increase over the past two weeks at 126%, reporting over 3,700 new cases. Health officials have linked some of the rise to hundreds of thousands of motorcyclists who descended on Sturgis, South Dakota, for an annual rally in August.

Cases are also rising rapidly in Iowa, with 13,600 new infections in the past two weeks, and North Dakota, with 3,600 new cases in the same period.

The increases are masked nationwide by decreasing new infections in the most populous states of California, Florida and Texas.

[Lasher]

6. She dismisses this 'elite class of so-called experts.'

They went ahead and had the SD state fair over the Labor Day weekend.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/09/03/south-dakota-covid-19-sturgis-rally-state-fair-kristi-noem/5709042002/

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=14040111

[still_one]

2. They have to do contact tracing that specifically corresponds to people who test positive that

attended this rally

[Wellstone ruled]

3. Appears the News Media in the Midwest,

both print and electronic,have not gone after this story. By design? Don't know. Do know that between Sinclair and USA Today owning most of the Media,are they suppressing the News,sure as hell looks like it.

[IronLionZion]

4. Article shows a lot of attendees came from swing states

The types of people who attended would be disproportionately Trump voters, and their friends back home would likely be Trump voters. It is a tragedy that they would infect essential workers they met along the way home or any innocent bystanders. But we may see fewer Trump voters in many swing states.

[Kid Berwyn]

14. Superspreading Asymptomatic Drumpf (SAD) voters.

Very interesting data mapped out there, IronLionZion. Reminds me of Edward Tufte.

[ProfessorGAC]

7. Quite Dubious Of This Study

While I certainly expect hot spots from this stupid gathering, number doesn't make sense to me.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
Looking at the first graph past the table, there isn't an obvious upward change in slope after Sturgis. In fact, the 10 days prior to the event looks to have a slightly steeper slope. (By a pinch.)
If we suddenly added 3.5% or so to the total case load in just 24 days, (out of around 190 days since this thing started) the slope should have steepened. This graph doesn't show that.
Unless there were mitigation strategies everywhere else that flattened the curve since mid- August (scant evidence of that), there should have been an obvious increase in daily cases.
The next graph is daily case load. Click the box next to 7 day moving average. You'll see the slope of that line actually going down since Sturgis.
I'm skeptical of these findings. The generalized data seem to contradict it.

[TomCADem]

8. Sturgis motorcycle rally in South Dakota in August linked to more than 250,000 coronavirus cases

I think this is the same study, which was based on cell phone data patterns.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/sturgis-motorcycle-rally-in-south-dakota-in-august-linked-to-more-than-250000-coronavirus-cases-study-finds-2020-09-08

The 10-day Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota in August, which drew more than 400,000 people, has now been linked to more than 250,000 coronavirus cases, according to a study by the IZA Institute of Labor Economics.

Using anonymized cellphone data from the rally, researchers from the University of Colorado Denver, Bentley University, University of California San Diego and San Diego State University found the bikers, who were filmed and photographed in crowded bars, restaurants and outdoor venues mostly without face masks, allowed for many of the “worst-case scenarios” for “superspreading.”

The event “was prolonged, included individuals packed closely together, involved a large out-of-town population, and had low compliance with recommended infection countermeasures such as the use of masks,” the researchers wrote. The event will cost an estimated $12.2 billion in health-care costs, they wrote.

The cellphone data showed foot traffic at restaurants, bars, hotels and shops in census block groups where the events took place rose by up to 90% during the event. At the same time, stay-at-home behavior declined among residents of Meade County with an up to 10.9% decline in median hours spent at home. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found cases spread both locally and in the home counties of those who attended and then traveled home.

[ProfessorGAC]

9. I Read Both Threads

A dramatic event like that should have influenced the whole.
It doesn't appear to have done so.
I have no doubt this had a spreading impact. But, this number doesn't square with the overall numbers.

[patphil]

12. I'm a little dubious also.

It takes a week or two to see the spike from exposure to symptoms. The rally ran Aug 7th to 16th.
I have seen several states with very high spikes starting a couple weeks after the rally (example: Illinois had 5,594 cases on Sept. 4th), but it's still developing and I don't see how that many cases could have occurred so quickly.
The 266,000 case number seems to me to be just way over the top.
Allowing 10 days for symptoms to develop, it would indicate a contribution of about 10,000 cases a day to the national figure. We haven't seen that.
There will be tens of thousands of cases, no doubt. But it's going to be over a longer period of time.
The real numbers will come in over the next several months as the secondary, tertiary, etc numbers come into play.
I think there could be a couple hundred thousand cases that relate back to Sturgis by the end of the year, but not in a month.

[ProfessorGAC]

13. Not Even A Month

The thing only started 31 days ago, and this analysis was completed mid to late last week.
Way too soon to get numbers like this, reliably.

[Warpy]

10. Loud Motorcycle Guy down the block was gone while it was on

and was loud for a couple of days when he got back, but has been quiet since.

He probably never saw that coming.

[lostnfound]

11. Katy Tur was saying 250,000 cases,while screen only said "thousands of cases"

Screen said “New report: Sturgis rally responsible for thousands of cases”

[Doug.Goodall]

15. Any one concered about having a tracking device with them all the time?

What happens when some unscrupulous individual with access to location logs give a person a call; "It would be a shame if your spouse found out your phone keeps repeatedly visiting a particular address … ".

How about when law enforcement wants to know why a person's phone stopped by a place of know criminal activity?

How much information should other people know about us?