by WSJ:
Holy Hell’s Angels. Last month’s motorcycle rally among the deplorables in Sturgis, South Dakota, contributed to 266,796 Covid-19 cases and $12.2 billion in public-health costs—or so claims a new study widely flogged by the media. Here is another example of how flawed statistical models can generate grossly exaggerated projections.
The annual 10-day rally with live performances, races and bike shows drew 460,000 Americans from around the country to the small town of Sturgis (population: 7,000). South Dakota is among the few states that never imposed a shelter-in-place order or face-mask mandate. It has also let restaurants and bars operate without restrictions.
Many in the media and various health sages warned that the motorcycle rally represented a “worst case scenario” for a “super-spreading” event. It would be surprising if the rally didn’t lead to at least some new Covid cases. But it’s impossible to know how many because there’s no data on how many attendees or their close contacts later tested positive.
Never fear, the modelers as always are here. San Diego State University’s Center for Health Economics & Policy Studies sought to quantify the rally’s Covid impact in South Dakota and nationwide by analyzing the (anonymous) cell-phone data of attendees. They then compared case trends in counties with high, moderate and low numbers of attendees.
They found that cases increased by 3.6 to 3.9 per 1,000 in South Dakota in the three weeks after the rally, translating to between 3,185 and 3,441 more cases statewide. To put this number in perspective, New York state has recorded as many cases in the last week even with its stringent public-health rules.
South Dakota still has among the lowest per capita death rates in the country (19 per 100,000) and fewer deaths and cases per capita than its neighbors Nebraska and North Dakota. Covid patients currently occupy 3% of state hospital beds and 6% of intensive-care units. So it seems that attendees at least didn’t expose the society’s vulnerable to the virus even if they were putting themselves at risk.
Where the study jumps off the rails is linking all of the relative increase in virus cases in counties with attendees compared to those without rally participants. The modelers multiplied the percent increase in cases for counties with attendees by their pre-rally cumulative cases to get a total of 263,708 additional cases—266,796 including South Dakota’s increase.
But many “high inflow” counties like Los Angeles, Maricopa (Arizona), Clark (Nevada) and El Paso were experiencing flare-ups before the rally. These counties may have shared other characteristics like higher population density that contributed to their increases. There could be other “endogenous” variables—for instance, counties with more people who attended the motorcycle rally may also have had populations less observant of social distancing.
The study’s authors nonetheless assign each of these 266,796 Covid cases a public-health cost of $46,000—ergo $12.2 billion—though the vast majority of all virus cases are mild or moderate. Talk about a case study in statistical overreach—and double standards.
Anyone else still remember when Trump told us that many people expect the COVID virus to” disappear magically” in April when the warmer weather arrives ?
Curt
How about giving us your own personal total death estimate in the USA by the end of the year ?
Mine is 300000 ( for the record)
Yeah, daily and nightly masses of screaming, hyper-ventilating crybabies, rioting, looting and then traveling from city to city, state to state, do not spread a single case (as per a “study” that miraculously emerged just after the riots began) but the Sturgis rally… or more than two people meeting at a bar or restaurant… is a super-spreader.
Is it any wonder why no one takes the liberal media seriously? That would even include liberals, who KNOW they are being lied to, but simply like the lies.
@John: Please provide the quote where Trump said the virus would “magically disappear”. Oh, and that prediction of mine you were going to deliver.
No more fake news has been on the covid fraud from day one now being joined by others
We have positive test results being mailed to dead people, people shot in the head or a motorcycle and car accident in the died of covid data.
We willingly walked into a prison cell during cold and flu season and the technocrats have no intention of releasing us as long as billions of our tax money is at stake.
Robert Kennedy Jr.
quote
“Governments love pandemics for the same reason they love war, because it gives them the ability
to impose controls on the population that the population otherwise never would accept. The great
institutions are orchestrating & imposing obedience. The only thing that governments need to make people into slaves . . . . is FEAR. You can get them to do anything you want. [While they’ve
kept us in lockdown] they’ve done a very good job of bringing 5G into all of our communities. And
to shift us all into a digital currency, which is the beginning of slavery, because if they control your
bank account they control your behavior. They’re spending $5 Trillion on 5G for Surveillance and
Data Harvesting. It is not for you and me, it’s for Bill Gates, it’s for Jeffrey Zuckerberg, for Bezos
@John:
“anonymous” cell-phone data of attendees is very valid and scientific. so where were the ventilators and multi-million dollar MASH type hospitals for $17 million like in nyc that never receives a patient? this is another hoax of disinformation.
your numbers are to high on an actual death toll.
I suspect that paedophile, kiddy porn loving joey will notify the fake media that he has tested POSITIVE for the virus and can not debate Trump.
You should make Sturgis one of your bucket list, it is a blast.
@John:
So?
I wonder why Leftist nutbags think that is some kind of horrible error.
Trump didn’t kill 200,000 people. The virus did. It’s a novel pathogen, and the death projections were much higher than 200,000…
But I’m supposed to pretend Trump and the nation “botched” the response?
No.
Trump should have spoken more carefully, but again…his big mouth is acceptable in light of how goddamn good he is at getting real things done.
This isn’t the silver bullet Democrats hope for, and his “April” comments will not affect voters in November….not one bit.
Sorry.
@Nathan Blue:
2020 is no different that late 1941 when the Final Solution, Endlosung der Judenfrage, was in preparation: Hitler blamed everything on the Jew and the libs blame everything on Trump. try to wrap your brain around a parallel event, or when did the democraps come up with the final solution on Trump??