- COVID-19 cases in South Dakota have surged since the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally ended on August 15.
- However, health experts say it can be difficult to measure exactly how many cases are directly tied to the event attended by more than 500,000 people.
- They say safety protocols need to be in place at all large public gatherings, including this fall’s college football games.
The annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally drew an estimated 525,000 people over a 10-day period in the small town of Stugis, in rural Meade County in South Dakota.
The event was held from August 6–15 amid the global COVID-19 pandemic and a recent surge in cases due to the Delta variant.
It had no rules requiring use of face masks or physical distancing among participants.
Now, in the weeks after the start of the rally, COVID-19 cases in South Dakota have risen sharply, according to data compiled by the New York Times.
The 7-day average of COVID-19 cases in the state was 54 on August 6. As of September, it stood at 434.
Meade County is now considered a COVID-19 hotspot, with a more than 100 percent increase in cases in the past 2 weeks. The Associated Press reports that contact tracers from five states have recorded 178 COVID-19 cases among individuals who attended the 2021 rally.
This is not the first time the Sturgis rally has been linked to a sharp uptick in COVID-19 cases.
Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) traced at least 649 cases to the event in 2020. Another study by economists who tracked cellphone data of rally attendees estimated that the event could have been responsible for up to 266,000 cases.
Source: healthline