11 ms·

A Superspreading Event: The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally and Covid-19 [pdf]

58 points by localhost 6y ago

sacks2k 6y ago
really? And many thousands of protesters all across the country (many not wearing masks and certainly not social distancing) aren't a 'superspreading event'? I don't think I've even seen one article mentioning it...because racism.
- HarryHirsch 6y ago
  It's surprising, but you can't argue with data - there were cases associated with Sturgis but not with the BLM protests. It kind of makes sense - that one thing Sturgis had and BLM didn't is bars. People catch COVID when they spend time in an enclosed enviroment next to an infected individual. Why bars and nightclubs are still open is a mystery from a public health standpoint.
  - phillipseamore 6y ago
    And the difference in mask wearing.
    - DFHippie 6y ago
      Yep. I went to only one BLM protest, but everyone was very conscientious about mask wearing.
  - bmarquez 6y ago
    It's true that you can't argue with data, but what if you're not allowed to collect the data. How can you criticize what you can't measure? As an example, NYC contact tracers were forbidden[1] to ask if people attended a protest. [1]https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/nyc-s-contact-tracers-have-been-told-not-to-ask-people-if-they-ve-attended-a-protest/ar-BB15w7qT https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/nyc-s-contact-tracers-have...
    - BrandonMarc 6y ago
      Very relevant point. We can't trust the science if the science isn't allowed to see certain things.
      - bananabreakfast 6y ago
        Not relevant at all. The government cannot be trusted to gather lists of protest attendees since they would be immediately used for retaliation. Statistics can be looked at in aggregate. Infections did not go up in areas with large protests.
        dmurray 6y ago
        The BLM tribe has safer Covid behaviour in general than the other side, though, outside their protest attendance. That's a pretty big confounding variable.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - anigbrowl 6y ago
        that's why the authors of these studies have been using anonymized cellphone data to study concentrations of people and subsequent changes (if any) in case loads.
    - HarryHirsch 6y ago
      NYC contact tracers were forbidden to ask if people attended a protest Refusing to collect that data point is completely understandable from a public health standpoint. There is substantiated concern that people may end up on cop shitlists for attending a protest, we know that there is police overreach, and the only way to keep the pigs out of the trough is not providing it at all. NYPD is notoriously corrupt. If any single person ended up being harassed by the cops as a result for telling the truth no one will ever work with a contact tracer again. Sad that the cops can't restrain themselves in a time of public emergency but that's the reality we live in.
- cjlars 6y ago
  I think there's only a few white papers on the protests, here's one not otherwise mentioned in the thread: https://academic.oup.com/jpubhealth/advance-article/doi/10.1093/pubmed/fdaa127/5880636 https://academic.oup.com/jpubhealth/advance-article/doi/10.1...
- reportingsjr 6y ago
  Almost every bit of protesting footage I've seen has the majority of people wearing masks, which is a huge deal. In the footage of the motorcycle rally in sturgis, I have seen almost no one wearing masks. On top of this, people protesting were almost exclusively outdoors whereas there are tons of stores, bars, etc in sturgis that people went in. Your comment is just ridiculous political pandering, trying to focus the topic other events that aren't similar in the slightest.
  - BrandonMarc 6y ago
    I saw lots of protest images in June, and July, and lately, featuring very few people with masks.
    - bananabreakfast 6y ago
      Then you saw a set of images curated to support a specific narrative not representative of the larger group.
      - liability 6y ago
        I live in Seattle and visited CHAZ/CHOP. While most protestors had masks, a large number of them had the mask below their nose and frequently not covering their mouth either. Nobody curated what I witnessed firsthand. I think the biggest difference is the protests skewed young and motorcycle rallies skew boomer.
        phobosanomaly 6y ago
        I have zero data to support this, but I've thought about it a lot and it seems to me that the majority of respiratory droplet secretion would be through the mouth during vocalization as a result of the vocal cords vibrating. +1 for the boomer skew.
  - stateofnounion 6y ago
    Thanks for citing that widely available and incredibly reliable data set of "things that you've seen and now try to remember from the past few months."
- Splendor 6y ago
  Yeah, articles about things that didn't actually happen are less common.
- the_gastropod 6y ago
  Good grief. I don't understand how this is shocking to anyone, tbh. Not everything "both sides" has to be equivalent. On the one side, you have a group of people who are super-skeptical that covid is even real, or even much worse than the flu. They tend to avoid wearing masks, and think those who do wear masks are weak, sheep, and/or deluded. On the "other side", you have a group of people who are, kind of by definition, empathetic humans, who are protesting the way our Black brothers and sisters are being treated. They tend to wear masks, stay outside, and be respectful to one-another. There have been studies on this. See: https://www.nber.org/papers/w27408 https://www.nber.org/papers/w27408 But, I guess as is consistent with conservatavism in this day and age, it's easier to believe this is "fake news" and some vast conspiracy to make Trump and co. look bad.
- ianjsikes 6y ago
  Actually it was pretty easy to find a paper on that exact subject by the same authors. https://www.iza.org/publications/dp/13388/black-lives-matter-protests-social-distancing-and-covid-19 https://www.iza.org/publications/dp/13388/black-lives-matter... > "we find no evidence that urban protests reignited COVID-19 case growth during the more than three weeks following protest onset. We conclude that predictions of broad negative public health consequences of Black Lives Matter protests were far too narrowly conceived."
  - BrandonMarc 6y ago
    Should concerns over Sturgis also be too narrowly conceived, then?
    - CyberDildonics 6y ago
      It is a separate event with much more in door crowds and much less mask wearing. Reality is not a negotiation where two different agendas agree on what they will pretend is the truth.
    - chishaku 6y ago
      This is the subject of the article.
just-juan-post 6y ago
Remember when there was supposed to be a wave of cases after the spring breakers gathered in large crowds? Or after memorial day? Or after the fourth of july? Or after schools reopened (Georgia has been open for a month, Europe for MONTHS)? There is one, and only one, obvious trend: These predictions are completely wrong and the virus is no where near the threat we make it out to be.
- Splendor 6y ago
  That must be comforting news for the families of the 180k+ dead people.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- encoderer 6y ago
  Hold up, did you look at a graph of cases? It has an incubation period. Absolutely every single one of those things is associated with a spike.
  - BrandonMarc 6y ago
    Good point. I see a spike in cases in mid-to-late June. Now ... what happened in early June that might lead to a spike in cases. Involving large crowds of very random people congregating together, perhaps shouting. Hmm. Well ...
    - RangerScience 6y ago
      It's my understanding that the spikes are associated with earlier events than the two-ish week single infection incubation period because for the case spikes, you have to have a few rounds of infection aka exponential growth before the infection rate impact makes a blip. As in: If you got 10k new cases in mid/late June, it's not "because" 10k people got infected at one event in early June, but because 10k ppl got infected in early June from 5k people who got infected in late July from ~3k people who got infected in early July from ~1k people who get infected in late May from one event. Note: Specific numbers pulled out of my ass as an easy way to convey the idea.
neilmock 6y ago
If you look at the parameters for the "valuation" of a SARS-CoV-2 infection, they are hard to take seriously. They are based on a mapping of typical workplace injuries to viral infections. This is the paper referenced: http://ftp.iza.org/dp13632.pdf http://ftp.iza.org/dp13632.pdf. A purely asymptomatic infection is valued at $11,000 A symptomatic but non-hospitalized infection is valued at $33,000 If you are in the hospital for any reason with an infection, $512,000 If you are in the ICU for any reason with an infection, $1,100,000 If you are in the ICU on a ventilator, $2,900,000
- tellmelies 6y ago
  Are you from America? Those numbers look pretty reasonable for US healthcare bills.
  - neilmock 6y ago
    I didn't realize I would get a bill when not seeking medical intervention at all, especially for $11,000 or $33,000.
    - klyrs 6y ago
      Several studies have shown that asymptomatic infections may have long-term impact. The valuation may be taking that into account -- you might not get that bill today, but maybe you (or your insurance) will pay that over the course of your lifetime
      - liability 6y ago
        > Several studies have shown that asymptomatic infections may have long-term impact. To the tune of tens of thousands of dollars on average? That's not plausible.
        jbeam 6y ago
        Sure it is. If 5% of asymptomatic cases require care that costs $200k, you come to $10k a person. This is entirely plausible in the US, particularly if you are amortizing the cost over the lifetime of the patient.
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29athrowaway 6y ago
In Texas, thousands of people attend drag races without masks. http://twitch.tv/murda http://twitch.tv/murda Attendees do not seem to care, the venue does not enforce their policies, authorities do not take action... I would not be surprised if there is a massive outbreak COVID-19 in that town.
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avolcano 6y ago
The amount of travel involved in this thing is staggering: > The cellphone tracking data showed about 10% of Sturgis attendees hailed from within South Dakota, with about 19% from border states and 72% from across the rest of the country, with heavy attendance from Arizona, California, Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Washington and Wyoming. I find this aspect far more upsetting than the stupidity of the event itself. It's one thing when a bunch of locals decide to congregate in an environment they really shouldn't be, but another thing entirely when it's 400,000 people biking across the country. Ironically - or perhaps not - I saw an NPR article ~a week ago[1] indicating the infection rate in Sturgis and its county, while certainly higher than it was before the rally, wasn't as catastrophic as you'd expect. Apparently, many people who live in Sturgis left town or just tried to avoid contact with anyone that weekend. Can't find any up to date information on whether the infection rate has increased since then with more time/testing, though. [1] https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/09/02/908874086/states-report-coronavirus-cases-linked-to-sturgis-s-d-motorcycle-rally https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0...
- phobosanomaly 6y ago
  Arizona saw this early in the pandemic in cities along the California border like Lake Havasu. They had zero mask restrictions for a while, and cases were low. Then they opened restaurants and bars, which were flooded by thousands of Californians coming across the border every weekend and not taking any precautions and Arizona's ICUs quickly reached capacity. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-05-11/californians-are-crowding-arizonas-lake-havasu https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-05-11/californ... "While many locals are grateful for the tourism dollars amid a global downturn, some are worried that the crowds could cause a rise in coronavirus cases locally and overwhelm the city’s only hospital, which has just 16 ICU beds for its 55,000 residents."
  - natrik 6y ago
    The article and the quote from the article you linked do not support your statement: "Arizona's ICUs quickly reached capacity". The article is dated May 11. https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&pto=aue&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=sv&sp=nmt4&tl=en&u=https://www.ssi.dk/aktuelt/nyheder/2020/influenzasasonen-2019-20-var-en-usadvanlig-sason&usg=ALkJrhjlxz7caWLvMrg-oZ7dyGrtYn-xdQ https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&... 2822 excess mortality for Denmark in its flu season of 2017/2018. Extrapolating Denmarks population to Swedens population we would expect 5000 excess mortality for a comparable bad flu season. Current Sweden COVID related deaths are 5800. Less than 16 deaths a day in Sweden since July 2. Less than 8 deaths a day since July 19. Swedens COVID related deaths will not go above 6000. Seems to be a 0.06% mortality rate, heavily weighted towards the aged. 6000 deaths is still a lot, yes.
mcguire 6y ago
"Furthermore, event organizers ... warned attendees that some “South Dakota tribal lands may be restricted with checkpoints to protect residents from COVID-19 exposure”" I bet that was fun. "Using a synthetic control approach, ... [f]or the state of South Dakota as a whole we find that the Sturgis event increase COVID-19 cases by 3.6 to 3.9 cases per 1,000 population as of September 2nd 2020. This represents an increase of over 35 percent relative to the 9.7 cases per 1,000 population in South Dakota on July 31, 2020 (South Dakota Department of Health 2020)." That's pretty substantial.
m0zg 6y ago
"Experts": 400K people for a few days is a "superspreader event" Also "experts": there is "no evidence" hundreds of thousands of people yelling slogans in the street for 100+ days are spreading COVID. The two can't be true at the same time.
- rileymat2 6y ago
  I am not sure, in many photos I see, the protests are outside and have high mask compliance.
- pchristensen 6y ago
  Sure they can - read this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24411270 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24411270
  - m0zg 6y ago
    No evidence was presented in that comment, other than evidence of political bias.
    - pchristensen 6y ago
      In the second paragraph, yes. The first paragraph pretty clearly explained the difference: "The inside/outside dynamic is not the only part of the location that matters for the dangers these events present. The big protests mainly occurred in big cities and were mainly attended by locals. The Sturgis rally happens in the middle of nowhere, people come from all over, and then head back home to places that are generally more rural. Sturgis is therefore much more likely to spread the virus to people and places who wouldn't have had much exposure otherwise."
      - m0zg 6y ago
        > mainly attended by locals Significant percentage of the arrestees are _not_ locals. Look it up. Booking records are public.
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listenallyall 6y ago
Figure 7 of the paper appears to show a large spike in cases in the "high inflow" counties, at 18-23 days and 24+ days post-Sturgis start (Aug 3). However, a quick review of the maps in Figure 1 identifies those counties as Clark, NV (Las Vegas), Maricopa, AZ (Phoenix) and Jefferson/Arapahoe/Weld, CO (Denver Metro). None of those counties' own data reporting seems to match up with this supposed spike in cases that the paper suggests, starting around Aug 21. https://media.southernnevadahealthdistrict.org/download/COVID-19/updates/September/20200908-COVID-19-Trends-Clark-County-PUBLIC.pdf https://media.southernnevadahealthdistrict.org/download/COVI... https://phdata.maricopa.gov/Dashboard/e10a16d8-921f-4aac-b921-26d95e638a45?e=false&vo=viewonly https://phdata.maricopa.gov/Dashboard/e10a16d8-921f-4aac-b92... https://www.jeffco.us/4007/COVID-19-Case-Summary https://www.jeffco.us/4007/COVID-19-Case-Summary Clark and Maricopa are clearly heading downwards. The Denver Metro graphs are a little more vague, you could maybe suggest there has been an uptick in cases but you'd be hard-pressed to definitively say there is a "spike" that contrasts with the long-term trend. I'm having some difficulty squaring the paper's case data with the county governments' own counts.
jhanschoo 6y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UK2FBEpmlUo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UK2FBEpmlUo If you'd like to have a better idea of what the rally itself was like and its attendees, All Gas No Brakes did a bit on it.
uslic001 6y ago
I doubt as many people were infected as they state as only one death has been reported so far. If as many were as infected as they claim many more deaths would have occurred by now.

58 points by localhost 6y ago

really? And many thousands of protesters all across the country (many not wearing masks and certainly not social distancing) aren't a 'superspreading event'? I don't think I've even seen one article mentioning it...because racism.

HarryHirsch 6y ago
It's surprising, but you can't argue with data - there were cases associated with Sturgis but not with the BLM protests. It kind of makes sense - that one thing Sturgis had and BLM didn't is bars. People catch COVID when they spend time in an enclosed enviroment next to an infected individual. Why bars and nightclubs are still open is a mystery from a public health standpoint.
- phillipseamore 6y ago
  And the difference in mask wearing.
  - DFHippie 6y ago
    Yep. I went to only one BLM protest, but everyone was very conscientious about mask wearing.
- bmarquez 6y ago
  It's true that you can't argue with data, but what if you're not allowed to collect the data. How can you criticize what you can't measure? As an example, NYC contact tracers were forbidden[1] to ask if people attended a protest. [1]https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/nyc-s-contact-tracers-have-been-told-not-to-ask-people-if-they-ve-attended-a-protest/ar-BB15w7qT https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/nyc-s-contact-tracers-have...
  - BrandonMarc 6y ago
    Very relevant point. We can't trust the science if the science isn't allowed to see certain things.
    - bananabreakfast 6y ago
      Not relevant at all. The government cannot be trusted to gather lists of protest attendees since they would be immediately used for retaliation. Statistics can be looked at in aggregate. Infections did not go up in areas with large protests.
      - dmurray 6y ago
        The BLM tribe has safer Covid behaviour in general than the other side, though, outside their protest attendance. That's a pretty big confounding variable.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - anigbrowl 6y ago
      that's why the authors of these studies have been using anonymized cellphone data to study concentrations of people and subsequent changes (if any) in case loads.
  - HarryHirsch 6y ago
    NYC contact tracers were forbidden to ask if people attended a protest Refusing to collect that data point is completely understandable from a public health standpoint. There is substantiated concern that people may end up on cop shitlists for attending a protest, we know that there is police overreach, and the only way to keep the pigs out of the trough is not providing it at all. NYPD is notoriously corrupt. If any single person ended up being harassed by the cops as a result for telling the truth no one will ever work with a contact tracer again. Sad that the cops can't restrain themselves in a time of public emergency but that's the reality we live in.
cjlars 6y ago
I think there's only a few white papers on the protests, here's one not otherwise mentioned in the thread: https://academic.oup.com/jpubhealth/advance-article/doi/10.1093/pubmed/fdaa127/5880636 https://academic.oup.com/jpubhealth/advance-article/doi/10.1...
reportingsjr 6y ago
Almost every bit of protesting footage I've seen has the majority of people wearing masks, which is a huge deal. In the footage of the motorcycle rally in sturgis, I have seen almost no one wearing masks. On top of this, people protesting were almost exclusively outdoors whereas there are tons of stores, bars, etc in sturgis that people went in. Your comment is just ridiculous political pandering, trying to focus the topic other events that aren't similar in the slightest.
- BrandonMarc 6y ago
  I saw lots of protest images in June, and July, and lately, featuring very few people with masks.
  - bananabreakfast 6y ago
    Then you saw a set of images curated to support a specific narrative not representative of the larger group.
    - liability 6y ago
      I live in Seattle and visited CHAZ/CHOP. While most protestors had masks, a large number of them had the mask below their nose and frequently not covering their mouth either. Nobody curated what I witnessed firsthand. I think the biggest difference is the protests skewed young and motorcycle rallies skew boomer.
      - phobosanomaly 6y ago
        I have zero data to support this, but I've thought about it a lot and it seems to me that the majority of respiratory droplet secretion would be through the mouth during vocalization as a result of the vocal cords vibrating. +1 for the boomer skew.
- stateofnounion 6y ago
  Thanks for citing that widely available and incredibly reliable data set of "things that you've seen and now try to remember from the past few months."
Splendor 6y ago
Yeah, articles about things that didn't actually happen are less common.
the_gastropod 6y ago
Good grief. I don't understand how this is shocking to anyone, tbh. Not everything "both sides" has to be equivalent. On the one side, you have a group of people who are super-skeptical that covid is even real, or even much worse than the flu. They tend to avoid wearing masks, and think those who do wear masks are weak, sheep, and/or deluded. On the "other side", you have a group of people who are, kind of by definition, empathetic humans, who are protesting the way our Black brothers and sisters are being treated. They tend to wear masks, stay outside, and be respectful to one-another. There have been studies on this. See: https://www.nber.org/papers/w27408 https://www.nber.org/papers/w27408 But, I guess as is consistent with conservatavism in this day and age, it's easier to believe this is "fake news" and some vast conspiracy to make Trump and co. look bad.
ianjsikes 6y ago
Actually it was pretty easy to find a paper on that exact subject by the same authors. https://www.iza.org/publications/dp/13388/black-lives-matter-protests-social-distancing-and-covid-19 https://www.iza.org/publications/dp/13388/black-lives-matter... > "we find no evidence that urban protests reignited COVID-19 case growth during the more than three weeks following protest onset. We conclude that predictions of broad negative public health consequences of Black Lives Matter protests were far too narrowly conceived."
- BrandonMarc 6y ago
  Should concerns over Sturgis also be too narrowly conceived, then?
  - CyberDildonics 6y ago
    It is a separate event with much more in door crowds and much less mask wearing. Reality is not a negotiation where two different agendas agree on what they will pretend is the truth.
  - chishaku 6y ago
    This is the subject of the article.

just-juan-post 6y ago

Remember when there was supposed to be a wave of cases after the spring breakers gathered in large crowds? Or after memorial day? Or after the fourth of july? Or after schools reopened (Georgia has been open for a month, Europe for MONTHS)? There is one, and only one, obvious trend: These predictions are completely wrong and the virus is no where near the threat we make it out to be.

Splendor 6y ago
That must be comforting news for the families of the 180k+ dead people.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
encoderer 6y ago
Hold up, did you look at a graph of cases? It has an incubation period. Absolutely every single one of those things is associated with a spike.
- BrandonMarc 6y ago
  Good point. I see a spike in cases in mid-to-late June. Now ... what happened in early June that might lead to a spike in cases. Involving large crowds of very random people congregating together, perhaps shouting. Hmm. Well ...
  - RangerScience 6y ago
    It's my understanding that the spikes are associated with earlier events than the two-ish week single infection incubation period because for the case spikes, you have to have a few rounds of infection aka exponential growth before the infection rate impact makes a blip. As in: If you got 10k new cases in mid/late June, it's not "because" 10k people got infected at one event in early June, but because 10k ppl got infected in early June from 5k people who got infected in late July from ~3k people who got infected in early July from ~1k people who get infected in late May from one event. Note: Specific numbers pulled out of my ass as an easy way to convey the idea.

neilmock 6y ago

If you look at the parameters for the "valuation" of a SARS-CoV-2 infection, they are hard to take seriously. They are based on a mapping of typical workplace injuries to viral infections. This is the paper referenced: http://ftp.iza.org/dp13632.pdf http://ftp.iza.org/dp13632.pdf. A purely asymptomatic infection is valued at $11,000 A symptomatic but non-hospitalized infection is valued at $33,000 If you are in the hospital for any reason with an infection, $512,000 If you are in the ICU for any reason with an infection, $1,100,000 If you are in the ICU on a ventilator, $2,900,000

tellmelies 6y ago
Are you from America? Those numbers look pretty reasonable for US healthcare bills.
- neilmock 6y ago
  I didn't realize I would get a bill when not seeking medical intervention at all, especially for $11,000 or $33,000.
  - klyrs 6y ago
    Several studies have shown that asymptomatic infections may have long-term impact. The valuation may be taking that into account -- you might not get that bill today, but maybe you (or your insurance) will pay that over the course of your lifetime
    - liability 6y ago
      > Several studies have shown that asymptomatic infections may have long-term impact. To the tune of tens of thousands of dollars on average? That's not plausible.
      - jbeam 6y ago
        Sure it is. If 5% of asymptomatic cases require care that costs $200k, you come to $10k a person. This is entirely plausible in the US, particularly if you are amortizing the cost over the lifetime of the patient.

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29athrowaway 6y ago

In Texas, thousands of people attend drag races without masks. http://twitch.tv/murda http://twitch.tv/murda Attendees do not seem to care, the venue does not enforce their policies, authorities do not take action... I would not be surprised if there is a massive outbreak COVID-19 in that town.

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avolcano 6y ago

The amount of travel involved in this thing is staggering: > The cellphone tracking data showed about 10% of Sturgis attendees hailed from within South Dakota, with about 19% from border states and 72% from across the rest of the country, with heavy attendance from Arizona, California, Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Washington and Wyoming. I find this aspect far more upsetting than the stupidity of the event itself. It's one thing when a bunch of locals decide to congregate in an environment they really shouldn't be, but another thing entirely when it's 400,000 people biking across the country. Ironically - or perhaps not - I saw an NPR article ~a week ago[1] indicating the infection rate in Sturgis and its county, while certainly higher than it was before the rally, wasn't as catastrophic as you'd expect. Apparently, many people who live in Sturgis left town or just tried to avoid contact with anyone that weekend. Can't find any up to date information on whether the infection rate has increased since then with more time/testing, though. [1] https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/09/02/908874086/states-report-coronavirus-cases-linked-to-sturgis-s-d-motorcycle-rally https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0...

phobosanomaly 6y ago
Arizona saw this early in the pandemic in cities along the California border like Lake Havasu. They had zero mask restrictions for a while, and cases were low. Then they opened restaurants and bars, which were flooded by thousands of Californians coming across the border every weekend and not taking any precautions and Arizona's ICUs quickly reached capacity. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-05-11/californians-are-crowding-arizonas-lake-havasu https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-05-11/californ... "While many locals are grateful for the tourism dollars amid a global downturn, some are worried that the crowds could cause a rise in coronavirus cases locally and overwhelm the city’s only hospital, which has just 16 ICU beds for its 55,000 residents."
- natrik 6y ago
  The article and the quote from the article you linked do not support your statement: "Arizona's ICUs quickly reached capacity". The article is dated May 11. https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&pto=aue&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=sv&sp=nmt4&tl=en&u=https://www.ssi.dk/aktuelt/nyheder/2020/influenzasasonen-2019-20-var-en-usadvanlig-sason&usg=ALkJrhjlxz7caWLvMrg-oZ7dyGrtYn-xdQ https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&... 2822 excess mortality for Denmark in its flu season of 2017/2018. Extrapolating Denmarks population to Swedens population we would expect 5000 excess mortality for a comparable bad flu season. Current Sweden COVID related deaths are 5800. Less than 16 deaths a day in Sweden since July 2. Less than 8 deaths a day since July 19. Swedens COVID related deaths will not go above 6000. Seems to be a 0.06% mortality rate, heavily weighted towards the aged. 6000 deaths is still a lot, yes.

mcguire 6y ago

"Furthermore, event organizers ... warned attendees that some “South Dakota tribal lands may be restricted with checkpoints to protect residents from COVID-19 exposure”" I bet that was fun. "Using a synthetic control approach, ... [f]or the state of South Dakota as a whole we find that the Sturgis event increase COVID-19 cases by 3.6 to 3.9 cases per 1,000 population as of September 2nd 2020. This represents an increase of over 35 percent relative to the 9.7 cases per 1,000 population in South Dakota on July 31, 2020 (South Dakota Department of Health 2020)." That's pretty substantial.

m0zg 6y ago

"Experts": 400K people for a few days is a "superspreader event" Also "experts": there is "no evidence" hundreds of thousands of people yelling slogans in the street for 100+ days are spreading COVID. The two can't be true at the same time.

rileymat2 6y ago
I am not sure, in many photos I see, the protests are outside and have high mask compliance.
pchristensen 6y ago
Sure they can - read this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24411270 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24411270
- m0zg 6y ago
  No evidence was presented in that comment, other than evidence of political bias.
  - pchristensen 6y ago
    In the second paragraph, yes. The first paragraph pretty clearly explained the difference: "The inside/outside dynamic is not the only part of the location that matters for the dangers these events present. The big protests mainly occurred in big cities and were mainly attended by locals. The Sturgis rally happens in the middle of nowhere, people come from all over, and then head back home to places that are generally more rural. Sturgis is therefore much more likely to spread the virus to people and places who wouldn't have had much exposure otherwise."
    - m0zg 6y ago
      > mainly attended by locals Significant percentage of the arrestees are _not_ locals. Look it up. Booking records are public.

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listenallyall 6y ago

Figure 7 of the paper appears to show a large spike in cases in the "high inflow" counties, at 18-23 days and 24+ days post-Sturgis start (Aug 3). However, a quick review of the maps in Figure 1 identifies those counties as Clark, NV (Las Vegas), Maricopa, AZ (Phoenix) and Jefferson/Arapahoe/Weld, CO (Denver Metro). None of those counties' own data reporting seems to match up with this supposed spike in cases that the paper suggests, starting around Aug 21. https://media.southernnevadahealthdistrict.org/download/COVID-19/updates/September/20200908-COVID-19-Trends-Clark-County-PUBLIC.pdf https://media.southernnevadahealthdistrict.org/download/COVI... https://phdata.maricopa.gov/Dashboard/e10a16d8-921f-4aac-b921-26d95e638a45?e=false&vo=viewonly https://phdata.maricopa.gov/Dashboard/e10a16d8-921f-4aac-b92... https://www.jeffco.us/4007/COVID-19-Case-Summary https://www.jeffco.us/4007/COVID-19-Case-Summary Clark and Maricopa are clearly heading downwards. The Denver Metro graphs are a little more vague, you could maybe suggest there has been an uptick in cases but you'd be hard-pressed to definitively say there is a "spike" that contrasts with the long-term trend. I'm having some difficulty squaring the paper's case data with the county governments' own counts.

jhanschoo 6y ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UK2FBEpmlUo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UK2FBEpmlUo If you'd like to have a better idea of what the rally itself was like and its attendees, All Gas No Brakes did a bit on it.

uslic001 6y ago

I doubt as many people were infected as they state as only one death has been reported so far. If as many were as infected as they claim many more deaths would have occurred by now.