#superspreader

In August of 2020, South Dakota hosted the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. Around 365,000 people attended. The ten-day rally became a superspreader event: new coronavirus infections in the state increased from an average of 87 new daily cases on the day the rally began to 313 at the start of September.

South Dakota's Republican Governor, Kristi Noemi, has proudly lifted all stay-at-home orders and travel restrictions. The state has absolutely no mask or vaccination mandates or other coronavirus restrictions in place. 700,000 people attended this year's rally in Sturgis, and as the above photo illustrates neither masks nor social distancing were of any concern to these attendees.

Unsurprisingly, the consequences were even worse than last year: South Dakota's daily coronavirus cases increased 685%, from an average of 54 when the rally began on August 6 to 424 as of September 1.

"Though cases were ticking upwards before the start of the rally, it was nowhere near the rate that they have been increasing in the weeks since. Cases and hospitalizations have both jumped by more than 100% each state-wide over the past two weeks ... The coronavirus surge has impacted counties that were previously reporting very few cases."

Tim Miller at The Bulwark on Donald Trump covering up his symptomatic COVID-19 at the time of the first presidential debate of 2020. 

i mean, i get why he is the one trending from the ~50ish ppl that were there - he has the biggest fanbase i think. so its understandable.

there is genuine criticism there and thats good, really good in fact, but a good portion of that is just plain disgusting. either because they attack him and say vile things (which i wont make fun of cuz i dont wanna repeat them) or because they protect and baby him like he's not a grown ass man. "ooh gogy wogy never left his house in years, he's aloud to go to 1 bd party u haters" - and you know they are the 14 year olds, because they use aloud instead of allowed.

and the other part just try to backseat his life at this point. they literally building their fantasy "george shouldnt ever gone to that party. so he couldve gotten on a plane in august. hes so irresponsible"

like jesus, yes THEY (everyone who was there unmasked) were irresponsible, but not because he can't meet dream and sapnap. they did rapid tests - and afaik in the uk has the ones that if its a false test, its false positive and like very very rarely false neg. so there's that. at least thats not that bad.

but they really could've masked themselves - even if all of them are fully vaxxed - cuz they can still spread covid and with the new delta variant this whole shebang just sounds and looks sketchy.

and i don't think twitter and twitch chat is ready to accept that covid warrior dream has spoken because george won't, and will most likely avoid streaming until mcc - imo ofc. i may be wrong - god let me be wrong pls - but george's damage control and overall attitude to a lot of things (i.e.: editing) is to wait, and pray it goes away. (or he uses his pretty privilege to get dream to do it for him - im still a simp i couldn't stop myself from writing this :/)

South Dakota sees the country’s LARGEST two-week COVID surge with a 230%+ increase in cases in the wake of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.

Some guy in Texas who led a group calling itself “Freedom Defenders” against mask restriction just died of COVID. He was 30 years old and left behind 3 children and a pregnant wife.