Blog Post Date: Aug 10th, 2020
Blog Post Updated: Aug 29th, 2020
The first event is the Annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally which will run from Friday, August 7, through Sunday, August 16.
Note: Sturgis is in Meade County, South Dakota. Meade has a population of about 29,000.
"No, we didn't take any precautions." Hear from some of the thousands of bikers who came to Sturgis, South Dakota, for the annual motorcycle rally, despite concerns about spreading the coronavirus and over the objections of some residents.
— The New York Times (@nytimes) August 8, 2020
Read more. https://t.co/yLLxisusiD pic.twitter.com/UU107zJ1fi
.@KathyParkNBC reports a city official in Sturgis, South Dakota, says attendance at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is comparable to previous years, with hundreds of thousands of attendees despite the coronavirus pandemic.https://t.co/l4pwVy0lXK
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) August 9, 2020
Since this is a week long event and most of the visitors are from all over the US, it may be hard to track the spread of the disease. However, we can monitor what happens in Meade county and its surrounding counties a few weeks after the rally.
So, I have taken a snapshot of where things stand at Butte, Custer, Lawrence, Meade, Pennington counties going into the Sturgis rally. You can see it at the Data analytisc site and you can see the daily changes.
https://corona-virus.dev/app/reports/cvus/cvuSuperSpreaders
Cases and Deaths Snapshot on Aug 28th: You can see 100% to 350% weekly growth in cases in all 5 counties
| County | Total Cases | Total Deaths | Cases This Week | Last Week | 2 Weeks Ago | Deaths This week | Last Week |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Butte | 41 | 1 | 19 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| Custer | 104 | 0 | 46 | 22 | 10 | 0 | 0 |
| Lawrence | 171 | 2 | 88 | 17 | 25 | 1 | 1 |
| Meade | 247 | 1 | 120 | 6 | 20 | 0 | 0 |
| Pennington | 1211 | 33 | 236 | 49 | 63 | 0 | 1 |
| Total | 1774 | 37 | 509 | 136 | 104 | 1 | 2 |
Cases and Deaths Snapshot on Aug 22nd: You can see growth in cases in all 5 counties already
| County | Total Cases | Total Deaths | Cases This Week | Last Week | 2 Weeks Ago | Deaths This week | Last Week |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Butte | 26 | 1 | 7 | 5 | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| Custer | 74 | 0 | 35 | 7 | 13 | 0 | 0 |
| Lawrence | 100 | 1 | 31 | 17 | 25 | 0 | 1 |
| Meade | 152 | 1 | 55 | 6 | 20 | 0 | 0 |
| Pennington | 1028 | 33 | 98 | 49 | 63 | 0 | 1 |
| Total | 1380 | 36 | 226 | 84 | 125 | 1 | 2 |
Cases and Deaths Snapshot on Aug 9th
| County | Total Cases | Total Deaths | Cases This Week | Last Week | 2 Weeks Ago | Deaths This week | Last Week |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Butte | 17 | 1 | 6 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| Custer | 35 | 0 | 12 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Lawrence | 55 | 0 | 25 | 25 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| Meade | 94 | 1 | 20 | 20 | 7 | 0 | 0 |
| Pennington | 891 | 32 | 65 | 65 | 58 | 3 | 3 |
| Total | 1092 | 34 | 128 | 125 | 71 | 3 | 3 |
Aug 22nd update -- Relevant links to COVID Data Analytics site
Sturgis super spreader data analytics page
Meade, Lawrence, Custer counties broke its cases record on 8/22. Pennington and Butte were close to its previous highs.
https://corona-virus.dev/app/reports/cvus/cvuSuperSpreaders
All 5 counties broke its cases record on 8/27. All 5 counties have weekly case growth of 100% to 350%.
Case and Death Patterns by State
https://corona-virus.dev/app/reports/cvus/cvupattern
States, counties setting cases and deaths records each day
South Dakota broke its cases record today (251).
Clearly, the Sturgis Rally has had a very immediate impact on the numbers in South Dakota and in Meade county and the surrounding counties.
You didn't need to be a rocket scientist to predict this. Just not a Kool-aid drinking Trump supporter, like the 450,000 idiotic (and now criminal as they are spreading cases and deaths nationwide) rally attendees or the criminal organizers of the Rally. The rally organizers knew that this would happen and yet the Republicans in South Dakota and Meade county went ahead with it. #NeedlessDeaths
We saw the same immediate impact after the Tulsa Trump rally and the Phoenix (Maricopa county) Trump rally. Both events resulted in a surge in cases and deaths in Oklahoma and Arizona. It also took the life of former Republican Presidential candidate Herman Cain!
Trump and the Republicans never seem to learn from their mistakes as they will now spread the disease and deaths due to it through Schools and Colleges reopening, College sports, NASCAR races etc. etc. These events are taking place in Republican states where the Positivity rate is still much much higher than 5% and cases haven't been declining for 14 days, which was the criteria for safe re-opening as outlined by the CDC. The CDC has now become willing accomplices of the Trump administration in spreading the disease nationwide through all these extremely risky events.
Where could this spread next from South Dakota?
It is quite possible that we will see a surge in cases / deaths in the immediate neighboring states of Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa. I will monitor if these states start appearing in the list of states that set new cases and deaths records in the next couple of weeks. If it does, it will be directly because of the Sturgis super spreader event.
8/24 update: Indiana (a couple of states over from SD) set its cases record (1880) today. Can't be a coincidence. It is spreading everywhere
https://corona-virus.dev/app/reports/cvus/cvuRecordCasesStates
Aug 29th Update -- SD and Neighboring states setting cases records
| State | 8/20 | 8/21 | 8/22 | 8/23 | 8/24 | 8/25 | 8/26 | 8/27 | 8/28 | 8/29 | 8/30 | 8/31 | 9/01 | 9/02 | 9/03 | 9/04 | 9/05 | 9/06 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SD | 251 | 623 | ||||||||||||||||
| ND | 274 | 333 | 374 | |||||||||||||||
| MN | 1154 | |||||||||||||||||
| IA | 1010 | 1201 | 2681* | |||||||||||||||
| NE | ||||||||||||||||||
| WY | ||||||||||||||||||
| MT | ||||||||||||||||||
| WI | ||||||||||||||||||
| IL | ||||||||||||||||||
| MO | ||||||||||||||||||
| KS | 988 | 1019 | ||||||||||||||||
| CO | ||||||||||||||||||
| UT | ||||||||||||||||||
| ID |
-
- Aug 27th entry for IA -- there was some fraud (what a surprise) in the earlier reporting of cases and deaths from the state of IA which they must have fixed.
Widespread fraud in Iowa state COVID Cases and Death Numbers (as is true in every Republican Governed state -- suppress testing and show low fake numbers)
Iowa’s medical director says she was aware of widespread inaccuracies in the state’s coronavirus data when her agency used it to release flawed calculations that helped guide decisions on school openings and enrollment this month. https://t.co/To88BiM3bb
— KCRG-TV9 (@KCRG) August 20, 2020
https://corona-virus.dev/app/reports/cvus/cvuRecordDeathsStates
Meade, Lawrence, Custer & 4 other SD counties broke its cases record on 8/22.
https://corona-virus.dev/app/reports/cvus/cvuRecordCasesCounties
8/24 update: Several counties in Kansas and Indiana set their cases record today. It is spreading to all the neigboring states
8/27 update: Several counties in Iowa and South Dakota set their cases record today. It is spreading to all the neigboring states
https://corona-virus.dev/app/reports/cvus/cvuRecordDeathsCounties
Cases and deaths records for each state
You can use these links to see when SD and its neighboring states set their cases and deaths records (before or after Sturgis rally).
-4 Neighboring states set cases records 4-6 days after Sturgis rally -SD broke its cases record on 8/22 (251), ND on 8/20 (274), IA on 8/20 (1010), KS on 8/21 (988)
https://corona-virus.dev/app/reports/cvus/cvuAllCasesStates
https://corona-virus.dev/app/reports/cvus/cvuAllDeathsStates
Details of Cases and deaths by state / county
You can use these links to see what counties in SD are getting hit or how the neighboring states are doing.
-4 Neighboring states set cases records 4-6 days after Sturgis rally -SD broke its cases record on 8/22 (251), ND on 8/20 (274), IA on 8/20 (1010), KS on 8/21 (988)
https://corona-virus.dev/app/reports/cvus/cvucounty
https://corona-virus.dev/app/reports/cvus/cvuSelectCounty
https://corona-virus.dev/app/reports/cvus/cvuSelectCountyAsTable
Some news a few days after the rally
Sep 2nd
A Minnesota biker who attended the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally has died of covid-19 — the case is among at least 260 cases in 11 states tied directly to the event
"A Minnesota biker who attended the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally has died of covid-19 — the case is among at least 260 cases in 11 states tied directly to the event"https://t.co/sNgC0zNOxL
— Rachel Maddow MSNBC (@maddow) September 2, 2020
Why Sturgis was a really bad idea. Looking at Mobile phone location data a few days after the rally
This visualization was created using anonymized cell phone location data records from the rally, showing where those devices were active leading up to, during, and after the event.
Why Sturgis was a really terrible idea:
— Decoherence (@DecoherenceWave) August 22, 2020
This visualization was created using anonymized cell phone location data records from the rally, showing where those devices were active leading up to, during, and after the event.
The rally has already been linked to multiple Covid cases. pic.twitter.com/0RG3M9XJPJ
At least seven Covid-19 cases in Nebraska's Panhandle region have been tied to the Sturgis motorcycle rally
At least seven Covid-19 cases in Nebraska's Panhandle region have been tied to the Sturgis motorcycle rally in South Dakota last week, public health officials say. https://t.co/jh8oBfhFlg
— CNN (@CNN) August 21, 2020
Minnesota officials say 15 residents linked to the Sturgis rally have the virus & 1 is hospitalized.
AUg 21st: Today S.D. announced 2 deaths & the most new cases in months.
We knew Sturgis was going to be a COVID-19 superspreader but Gov. Noem wouldn’t listen. Now Minnesota officials say 15 residents linked to the Sturgis rally have the virus & 1 is hospitalized. Today S.D. announced 2 deaths & the most new cases in months. https://t.co/wImkc36X9a
— Ruth H. Hopkins (@Ruth_HHopkins) August 21, 2020
All it takes is one to start the spread
A person with COVID-19 may have exposed others at a bar during Sturgis motorcycle rally https://t.co/cJ6hrHP7kU pic.twitter.com/Xi7bOeHN02
— CTV News (@CTVNews) August 19, 2020
A worker at a Sturgis tattoo parlor worked five 14-hour shifts while able to transmit COVID-19 to people, the Department of Health announced.
This and the person at the bar in a town full of 460,000 drunks could spread the disease to hundreds of thousands in the next few weeks.
A worker at a Sturgis tattoo parlor worked five 14-hour shifts while able to transmit COVID-19 to people, the Department of Health announced. https://t.co/pH5HN9YZ4f
— ArgusLeader911 (@Argus911) August 20, 2020
A scary projection of what could happen from a single super spreader event like Sturgis
The Sturgis Bike Rally could not be better manufactured to spread covid than if it were made in a video game algorithm.https://t.co/VOjv7aVvH6 pic.twitter.com/lOrnUVrGBS
— Sandy Schwartz (@JAH14811221) August 18, 2020
Not looking good, cases emerging in many states
Not looking good—Sturgis Motorcycle Rally linked #COVID19 cases are emerging, including at bars. 250k people gatherings never end well during pandemic. Hope outbreak doesn’t grow. But limited contact tracing in US. https://t.co/AsMl6XTMSQ
— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) August 22, 2020