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“‘Defeat The Mandates’ Rally Against Covid-19 Precautions Held During Omicron Surge,” Bruce Y. Lee, Forbes
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“The Anti-vaccine Right Brought Human Sacrifice to America,” Kurt Andersen, The Atlantic
Last August, 460,000 bikers from all over the country headed to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota’s Black Hills. Many carried Covid-19 back home. Contact tracing was nearly impossible, but at least 649 Covid-19 cases were linked directly to the Sturgis rally, and they passed the virus around to friends and family. One estimate put cumulative infections from the event at 250,000 nationwide, generating public health costs of $12.2 billion.
Trump COVID-19 advisor Scott Atlas, MD, is not an epidemiologist or an infectious disease expert. He’s a renowned expert in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). Dr. Atlas has no pandemic expertise and hasn’t practiced medicine in 10 years, but he’s a fellow in Health Care Policy at Stanford’s conservative Hoover Institution and bloviates on Fox News, so he’s the go-to White House medico. When it comes to coronavirus, Dr. Atlas wants to let lots of people get it to bring about “herd immunity.” Real pandemic experts estimate it would require the deaths of 2 million Americans to achieve “herd immunity” in the U.S.
“Within weeks of the gathering, the Dakotas, along with Wyoming, Minnesota and Montana, were leading the nation in new coronavirus infections per capita. The surge was especially pronounced in North and South Dakota, where cases and hospitalization rates continued their juggernaut rise into October. Experts say they will never be able to determine how many of those cases originated at the 10-day rally, given the failure of state and local health officials to identify and monitor attendees returning home, or to trace chains of transmission after people got sick.”
“More than 330 coronavirus cases and one death were directly linked to the rally as of mid-September, according to a Washington Post survey of health departments in 23 states that provided information. But experts say that tally represents just the tip of the iceberg, since contact tracing often doesn’t capture the source of an infection, and asymptomatic spread goes unnoticed.”
–“How the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally may have spread coronavirus across the Upper Midwest,” Brittany Shammas and Lena H. Sun, Washington Post
More:
“Sturgis Motorcycle Rally was ‘superspreading event’ that cost public health $12.2 billion: analysis,” J. Edward Moreno, The Hill
“The inevitable fallout from last month’s Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, an annual event that packed nearly 500,000 people into a small town in South Dakota, is becoming clear, and the emerging picture is grim.
According to a new study, which tracked anonymized cellphone data from the rally, over 250,000 coronavirus cases have now been tied to the 10-day event, one of the largest to be held since the start of the pandemic. It drew motorcycle enthusiasts from around the country, many of whom were seen without face coverings inside crowded bars, restaurants, and other indoor establishments.
The explosion in cases, the study from the Germany-based IZA Institute of Labor Economics finds, is expected to reach $12 billion in public health costs.”
— “Sturgis Motorcycle Rally Is Now Linked to More Than 250,000 Coronavirus Cases,” Inae Oh, Mother Jones
More:
“Sturgis Motorcycle Rally was ‘superspreading event’ that cost public health $12.2 billion: analysis,” J. Edward Moreno, The Hill
“Sturgis Motorcyle Rally linked to more than 265,000 cases of COVID-19 costing $12 billion: report,” Nancy Dillon, NY Daily News
When the plague hit England in 1665, Cambridge University sent students away and didn’t offer Zoom classes. Isaac Newton explains how he spent his time back home.
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“During a pandemic, Isaac Newton had to work from home, too. He used the time wisely.” Gillian Brockell, Washington Post
“A Social Distance,” a film by Jacob Jonas and Ivan Cash, with music by Steve Hackman. How ordinary people are experiencing self- quarantine around the world.
Last week President Trump told governors to “call the shots” on reopening their states’ economies, then called on mobs of his followers to “liberate” states with Democratic governors, specifically the battleground states of Michigan, Minnesota, and Virginia. His rabid supporters turned out at state capitals, and some of them were armed.
“One wears a Guy Fawkes mask. Two men wear Trump-branded baseball caps. Two women, the closest to the windows, shape their mouths into the same elongated howl as Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream.’ American flags obscure some of the protesters in the back.”
“It looked awfully familiar to Michael Satrazemis, the director of photography for ‘The Walking Dead’ and director of ‘Fear the Walking Dead,’ two shows that seem a little scarier these days, since they’re about a zombie apocalypse that begins with an uncontrollable pathogen.
The visual trope is ‘classic horror,’ says Satrazemis. It plays on the common fear of claustrophobia, making the audience “\’feel the walls are closing in and the world is shrinking around you. And there’s no way out.’”
— “That Ohio protest photo looked like a zombie movie. Zombie movie directors think so, too.”Maura Judkis, Washington Post
“More than 80 percent of the benefits of a tax change tucked into the coronavirus relief package Congress passed last month will go to those who earn more than $1 million annually, according to a report by a nonpartisan congressional body ….
The provision, inserted into the legislation by Senate Republicans, temporarily suspends a limitation on how much owners of businesses formed as ‘pass-through’ entities can deduct against their nonbusiness income, such as capital gains, to reduce their tax liability. The limitation was created as part of the 2017 Republican tax law to offset other tax cuts to firms in that legislation.
Suspending the limitation will cost taxpayers about $90 billion in 2020 alone, part of a set of tax changes that will add close to $170 billion to the national deficit over the next 10 years, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT), the nonpartisan congressional body.”
— “Tax change in coronavirus package overwhelmingly benefits millionaires, congressional body finds,” Jeff Stein, Washington Post
More:
“Coronavirus stimulus law has a tax loophole just for millionaires, report says,” Charles Duncan, McClatchy
“Millionaires to reap 80% of benefit from tax change in US coronavirus stimulus,” Amanda Holpuch, The Guardian
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“White House, GOP face heat after hotel and restaurant chains helped run small business program dry,” Jonathan O’Connell, Washington Post
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