JoIn Meade County, west South Dakota, more than one in three COVID-19 tests is giving positive results, and over the past three weeks, the average number of seven-day cases has increased by 3,400. per cent. This exponential growth in cases is likely to be attributed to the 81st Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, which drew about half a million visitors to and around Meade County from August 6-15, which could act as a superextension event.
The pandemic is rising nationwide, not just in the vicinity of the chaos of cyclists in South Dakota. Defined in large part by the emergence of the highly transmissible Delta variant, the United States is currently experiencing its fourth rise in COVID-19, and our cases nationwide have increased by 64.4% over the past 21 days. (For more information about our methodology, see our note at the end of this column.)
But while southern states have been the main drivers of this wave so far, the recent rise in cases in South Dakota justifies a special concern.
Overall, the state has witnessed a 686.8 percent increase in the daily count of cases over the past three weeks, currently more than ten times the national rate. The post-Sturgis rise in Meade County is certainly a contributor to this increase at the state level, but neighboring counties have also experienced a sharp decline in cases, ranging from a 1,900 percent increase in the last three weeks in Butte up 1,050 percent in Lawrence.
These two counties are also key points of the concentration, which is not, in fact, limited to Sturgis. And with residents across South Dakota attending the rally, it’s not uncommon for more remote counties — such as Charles Mix County, which experienced a 1,500 percent increase — to experience a tilt in cases as well.
The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally represents the perfect storm for a region-wide superextension event: a large, untested, no-mask, no-vaccination rally. Although many (but not all) of the events took place outdoors and therefore offered more protection against SARS-CoV-2 transmission than if they had not been, the Dakota Department of Transportation of the South reported that 525,768 vehicles entered Sturgis during the ten days of the rally. The large number of people attending combined with the lack of additional precautions presented excellent conditions for viral transmission.
Dr. Shankar Kurra, vice president of medical affairs for Monument Health in Rapid City, told The Daily Beast that he was living a repeated nightmare.
“We knew this would happen,” Dr. Kurra said. “It simply came to our notice then. It was just a resumption of last year.
Kurra added that hospitals in the area had 58 patients battling COVID-19 earlier this week. Before the rally, they had “a handful of five to ten,” he said.
The vast majority of new infections in the United States now occur in individuals who are not fully vaccinated, including those reported after Sturgis; however, vaccine administration varies widely across the country. In South Dakota, low confidence in the government has been linked to hesitation. As elsewhere in the United States, the vaccine’s hesitation is greater among Republicans than Democrats in South Dakota, where nearly two-thirds of voters went to seek Trump in 2020.
Non-optimal vaccination rates in South Dakota are a key factor in understanding the recent rise in cases. In the United States, 51.6% of the total population is fully vaccinated, according to the CDC. But in Meade, only 38.3 percent of the total population is vaccinated. In nearby Lawrence County, the proportion of fully vaccinated residents is 37.4%. with 26%, rates are even lower in Butte.
Dr. Kevin Weiland, who works at Rapid City Medical Center, which is not affiliated with Monument Health, said Sturgis’ rise was not a surprise. But he lamented the extent to which unvaccinated people could endanger even those who had shots, and cited a care center for the elderly in the region that said it had 17 residents infected with COVID, 15 of them vaccinated.
“These boys were vaccinated at the beginning of the pandemic,” he said, alluding to emerging CDC guidelines that vaccine protection may diminish over time, particularly in vulnerable groups. “It simply came to our notice then. It’s so sad. “
Weiland went on to explain that he was extremely frustrated to see this happen at a time when vaccines are available, but millions of people refused to take them. During the Sturgis rally, several attendees told The Daily Beast that they were not vaccinated and would not be shot.
“You don’t have to tell people what to do. They have to know what to do, “Weiland said.” That’s crazy. We should be vaccinated and wear a mask. That’s crazy, crazy, crazy. “
New infections are strongly associated with vaccination rates across the country and are an important factor in considering why some major events have been raised as superspanders, while others have not.
Take Lollapalooza, for example. The four-day outdoor music festival, largely (but not entirely), in Chicago, was held from July 29 to August 1, but catered to a very different demographic than the of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.
Despite hosting more than 100,000 people each day of the festival, all indications are that Lollapalooza did not result in a superextension event. This may be due to the fact that Lollapalooza organizers, who worked in active collaboration with the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH), required a vaccination test or a negative COVID-19 test within the previous 72 hours. to attendance, and 90% of attendees were fully vaccinated. In addition, masks were needed in the indoor spaces during the last two days of the event (again, under the notice of the CDPH).
Sometimes called the “Swiss model of pandemic defense,” preventive measures such as testing, masks, and vaccination work together to protect against infection and have the best combined performance than any of them. It’s a reality that may have saved Lollapalooza from becoming a superdifference event and could have done the same for the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, if political will allowed.
Unlike Lollapalooza, who was guided by health officials in enacting and implementing a multi-layered COVID-19 safety protocol, the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally took place in a state where the government has been in largely apathetic in its response to the pandemic. In late July, a few weeks before the rally, she attended herself, Gov. Kristi Noem went so far as to say she had “no plan” to encourage vaccination among her constituents.
South Dakota Department of Health spokesman Daniel Bucheli told The Daily Beast that the notable increase in cases was not unique to South Dakota.
“Rises in the COVID-19 case are following a national trend that is being experienced in all states, not just SD,” Bucheli, who served as deputy press secretary for the 2020 campaign, said in an email on Tuesday. of President Donald Trump between 2019-20. “Also, as of last night, according to the CDC (for the past 7 days), SD is 31st in new cases and 38th in new deaths. As for new hospitalizations, we are tied for 35th place. ”It is true that deaths from COVID-19 in the state remain relatively low, in fact, the latest CDC numbers showed that the average of seven days of deaths per 100,000 people in the state. State was one of the lowest in the country, but there have always been lags between case rises and deaths from the virus.
And the degree of political indifference is particularly discordant, not only in the context of the Delta variant, but also because of the consequences of last year’s 80th Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. While the exact number of cases attributable to the 2020 rally continues to be debated, it was widely seen as a superdifference event (despite claims to the contrary little defended by South Dakota health officials).
While cases are on the rise not only in Meade County but across the state — and across the country — there is growing evidence that this year’s concentration could soon be considered. After all, the Delta variant that is now dominant in the United States is considerably more contagious than its predecessors.
“These viruses mutate,” Weiland, who fled the state devastated by a pandemic during the rally, told The Daily Beast Weiland, before comparing the increase in variants with cannibal killer Jeffrey Dahmer.
“Jeff Dahmer was a mutation. It will be worse. “
“With reports from Tom Lawrence in South Dakota.”
Methodology: To calculate the percentage of changes of 21 days in reported cases, we used average cases of seven days from The New York Times and the following formula: 21-day percentage change in cases = [(case count on August 24, 2021 in a given population) – (case count August 3, 2021, in a given population)] ÷ (case count on August 3, 2021, in a given population) × 100. For Butte and Charles Mix counties, we used 0.5 reported cases on August 3, 2021 to calculate the change of three weeks in cases, as both reported 0 seven average cases on August 3, 2021.