South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem has dismissed as “fiction” a recent study published by San Diego State University that ties the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in August to a massive surge in COVID-19 cases and approximately $12.2 billion in public health care costs.
The report, The Contagion Externality of a Superspreading Event: The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally and COVID-19, published by the Center for Health Economics & Policy Studies (CHEPS) at San Diego State University, estimates that “266,796 or 19 percent of 1.4 million new cases of COVID-19 in the United States between August 2nd 2020 and September 2nd 2020” could be tracked to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.
The rally took place August 7 through August 16 and had an estimated 462,182 attendees.
The Associated Press has reported that a Minnesota man who attended the 10-day event died from COVID-19. It is thought to be the the first coronavirus death with a link to the rally. At least 290 people in 12 states have tested positive for the coronavirus since attending the rally, according to the AP.
Camber Systems, a firm that aggregates cellphone activity for health researchers, has estimated that 61% of all counties in the U.S. have been visited by someone who attended the Sturgis rally, the AP reported.
Following the release of the CHEPS study, Gov. Noem on Sept. 8 issued a statement on the report, calling it “grossly misleading” and disputing its findings.
“This report isn’t science; it’s fiction. Under the guise of academic research, this report is nothing short of an attack on those who exercised their personal freedom to attend Sturgis,” Noem said in a prepared statement. “Predictably, some in the media breathlessly report on this non-peer reviewed model, built on incredibly faulty assumptions that do not reflect the actual facts and data.
“At one point, academic modeling also told us that South Dakota would have 10,000 COVID patients in the hospital at our peak. Today, we have less than 70. I look forward to good journalists, credible academics, and honest citizens repudiating this nonsense.”
The Washington Post reported that the South Dakota Department of Health has linked 124 cases to the Sturgis rally through contact tracing.
Researchers analyzed virus case counts, as well as anonymized cellphone data provided by SafeGraph Inc., in conducting the CHEPS study. The report was authored by Dhaval Dave, Bentley University, IZA & NBER; Andrew I. Friedson, University of Colorado Denver; Drew McNichols, University of San Diego-California & San Diego State University; and Joseph J. Sabia, San Diego State University & IZA.
Topics Auto Education Universities COVID-19
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