Motorcycle Rally Revs Up the Delta Variant

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.

The 2021 Sturgis Rally started Friday, with 700,000 riders expected, and something new has been added, the Delta Variant, which is more contagious, and makes people sicker. Sturgis is in Meade County, which has a 37 percent vaccination rate, and rates in the six bordering counties are even lower.

Naturally, pistol-packin’, hard-drivin’, snake-oil pushing,  Trump-touting former beauty queen and South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem will be attending.

More:

“South Dakota’s Sturgis Motorcycle Rally: A ‘cautionary tale’ in the age of Covid-19,” By Ray Sanchez, CNN

“Sturgis bike rally revs back bigger, despite virus variant,” Stephen Groves, Associated Press

“Sturgis Motorcycle Rally revs up, drawing thousands and heightening delta superspreader fears,” Timothy Bella, Washington Post

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Image (“Disease Vector”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Motorcycle Rally Drives Up Upper Midwest Coronavirus Cases

Remember South Dakota’s Sturgis Motorcycle Rally back in August, where 400,000 riders gathered without face masks or social distancing? Back then there was little COVID-19 in the Dakotas or surrounding states, but attendees brought the viral souvenir back to their Upper Midwest homes with them.

“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

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Short link: https://wp.me/p6sb6-vT4

Image (“Disease Vector”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

Motorcycle Rally Linked to 250,000+ Coronavirus Cases

“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