COVID Fallout From Sturgis Rally Not Looking Good

My wife always say "choices have consequences", so I guess bad choices would probably have bad consequences, right?

Looks like the 10 day event held in Sturgis, South Dakota is having a pretty big impact in COVID-19 cases. South Dakota and North Dakota, both with few COVID restrictions, are among the highest in cases per capita.

Just the fact that around 500,000 people gather in this small town with no social distancing or any other real precautions, is anyone surprised that cases are popping up all over the country and attributed to the rally.

I mean, people came from all over the country and partied for 10 days, often in enclosed places, and then spread out and headed home and, from the looks of it, may have infected many people.

There was a study tracking anonymized cellphone data from the Sturgis rally and according to the study, 250,000 cases have been tied to the rally.

The study was done by Germany based IZA Institute of Labor Economics. According to their study public health costs could reach 12 billion dollars.

“The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally represents a situation where many of the ‘worst-case scenarios’ for super-spreading occurred simultaneously,” the researchers wrote, “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.”

I guess it shouldn't be any surprise that the event created many new cases. Few safeguards were in place and a great many attendees seemed to mock the danger of COVID. Recently a Minnesota man died of COVID after returning from the rally.

(Mother Jones)

https://www.motherjones.com/coronavirus-updates/2020/09/sturgis-motorcycle-rally-is-now-linked-to-more-than-250000-coronavirus-cases/