Nineteen percent of the 1.4 million new coronavirus cases in the U.S. between Aug. 2 and Sept. 2 can be traced back to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally held in South Dakota, according to researchers from San Diego State University's Center for Health Economics & Policy Studies.
www.foxnews.com
Fact Checkers have deemed this false. Sorry, collect your boobie prize on your way out.
Troglodyte Spreads Fear With Ignorance and Malice
Study suggests rally led to over 260,000 COVID-19 cases
A California research group set out to estimate the impact of a single COVID-19 “super-spreader” event – and in the case of the Sturgis Rally, the impact was large.
The
study, released by the Center for Health Economics and Policy Studies at San Diego State University, estimates that 266,796 COVID-19 cases across the country in the month following the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally can be traced back to the event, which
took place from Aug. 7-16. That figure is
19% of the 1.4 million COVID-19 cases between Aug. 2 and Sept. 2.
The researchers used cellphone data to identify areas that saw a large number of rally-goers and tracked cases both before and after the event, the Argus Leader
reported.
More:South Dakota dismisses 'elite class of so-called experts,' carries on with state fair after Sturgis rally fueled COVID-19 surge
Both South Dakota’s governor and secretary of health have criticized the study, the Argus Leader reported.
"Under the guise of academic research, this report is nothing short of an attack on those who exercised their personal freedom to attend Sturgis,” Kristi Noem, governor of South Dakota, said in a
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 here in South Dakota."
"I would just caution you about putting too much stock into models ... that can't be verified by other factual numbers," Kim Malsam-Rysdon, the state’s secretary of health, said in reference to the study. "I think that is the case with that particular white paper."
Fact check:CDC's data on COVID-19 deaths used incorrectly in misleading claims
Questions, criticism about study
South Dakota state epidemiologist Josh Clayton was
critical of the study, noting it is not yet peer-reviewed.
"The results do not align with what we know for the impacts of the rally," Clayton said Sept. 8.
He also
told the Washington Post that the study doesn’t account for an already-increasing trend of case counts in South Dakota or that school reopenings might have contributed to the rise.
Independent experts were wary of the study’s scope, too. Devin Pope, a professor of behavioral sciences and economics at the University of Chicago, told USA TODAY that while he thinks the study uses reasonable methods, it’s likely that the numbers are heavily overstated.
More:First COVID-19 death linked to massive Sturgis biker rally; cases reported across the nation
The study uses a synthetic control, which means the researchers looked for other locations around the U.S. that are similar to the focus of the study, tracing what those counties’ trajectories looked like before and after the Sturgis Rally. But in order to avoid a spillover effect, bordering states were excluded, which Pope said could drastically change the numbers.
“In their current study, I don't think they have a problem with spillover effects because they exclude them by design, but by excluding those areas, they're also making their synthetic control not as good,” he said. “And so there's a tradeoff there between having spillover effects potentially kind of influence the results, but also having a better control.”
The researchers have stood by their work.
"We stand by the entirety of our coronavirus research," Dhaval Dave, one of the researchers,
told NBC News. "We used publicly available data that other researchers have used, including the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). These are not forecasting exercises."
Fact check:Tuberculosis is more dangerous than COVID-19, but context matters
Our rating: False
We rate the claim that the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally led to 88 positive tests attributed to the rally, which is a 0.02% infection rate among attendees, as FALSE because it was not supported by our research. The state of South Dakota has attributed 124 cases in the state to the rally. The Associated Press reported that at least 290 people in 12 states who attended the rally have also tested positive. Taken together, that's an infection rate of 0.09%.
Our fact-check sources:
- USA TODAY, Aug. 7, No masks required as 250,000 expected at 10-day Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. Here's what to know.
- Utah Department of Health, Calculation of Infection Rates
- Sioux Falls Argus Leader, Sept. 8, Study says 260,000 COVID-19 cases could be tied to Sturgis rally; Noem calls it 'fiction'
- Associated Press, Sept. 2, COVID-19 death tied to Sturgis Rally reported in Minnesota
- USA TODAY, Sept. 2, First COVID-19 death linked to massive Sturgis biker rally; cases reported across the nation
- KARE 11, Sept. 2, LISTEN LIVE: MN Dept. of Health Briefing - September 2, 2020
- USA TODAY, Sept. 3, South Dakota dismisses 'elite class of so-called experts,' carries on with state fair after Sturgis rally fueled COVID-19 surge
- South Dakota Department of Health, retrieved Sept. 10, COVID-19 data
- San Diego State University Center for Health and Policy Studies, Sept. 5, The Contagion Externality of a Superspreading Event: The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally and COVID-19
- Sturgis Motorcycle Rally website
- Fox News, Sept. 8, Sturgis Motorcycle Rally linked to 20% of US coronavirus cases in August: researchers
- South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, Sept. 8, Twitter thread
- The Washington Post, Sept. 8, ‘Worst case scenarios’ at Sturgis rally could link event to 266,000 coronavirus cases, study says
- Interview with Devin Pope, professor of behaviorial science and economics at the University of Chicago
- NBC News, Sept. 9, 250,000 COVID-19 infections from Sturgis? 'Made up' numbers, S.D. governor says