Sturgis motorcycle rally draws thousands of bikers despite coronavirus fears
Category: News & Politics
Via: perrie-halpern • 4 years ago • 114 commentsBy: NBC News and The Associated Press
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Thousands of bikers poured into the small city of Sturgis, South Dakota, on Friday for the start of the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, despite concerns among residents that the 10-day gathering could spread the coronavirus.
The rally, which has been happening since 1938, expects to draw 250,000 people from around the country in what could be one of the largest public gatherings in the U.S. since the start of the coronavirus outbreak.
Some bikers at the event said that while they will take precautions against the virus, they didn't let it stop them from coming.
"We'll take precautions and, you know, hopefully, everyone will be respectful," one biker told NBC's "TODAY." "We take it seriously but, no, no reservations. We're glad to be here."
Another said you just have to be careful. "You can't not live life."
Those attending the rally are encouraged, but not required, to wear face masks. The governor of South Dakota has never issued a stay-at-home order or mask mandate for the state.
STURGIS, SD - AUGUST 07: Motorcyclists drive down Main Street during the 80th Annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally on Aug. 7, 2020 in Sturgis, S.D.Michael Ciaglo / Getty Images Let our news meet your inbox. The news and stories that matters, delivered weekday mornings. Sign Up
One attendee, Stephen Sample, said he rode his bike from Arizona for the event.
"I don't want to die, but I don't want to be cooped up all my life either," the 66-year-old said.
Sample said he does have concerns about catching the virus and will try to avoid indoor bars and venues, where he feels there is a greater risk.
"I think we're all willing to take a chance," he said.
Rallygoers Bill Sudkamp and his wife were also taking precautions.
The couple, who were each wearing a face mask, said they will avoid bars, and that they see it as inevitable that infections would spread in bars and at concert venues.
"It looked like South Dakota was plateauing mostly," Sudkamp said of coronavirus cases in the state. "It will be interesting to see what it looks like in two weeks."
That prospect of coronavirus infections possibly rising from the rally has worried some residents of this city of 7,000 in the western part of the state.
As of Saturday morning, South Dakota reported a total of 9,371 confirmed coronavirus cases, with 144 deaths, according to the state Department of Health website.
"I think it's pretty selfish that the powers that be didn't stop this," resident Nate Nelson told "TODAY" about the rally.
City Manager Daniel Ainslie said officials had their hands tied. "We can't block off the entrances to our community, and so on a daily basis we're getting hundreds of thousands of people saying, 'It doesn't matter what happens, we're coming to your town.'"
One week after the rally, residents of Sturgis will be able to take the coronavirus test free of charge, "TODAY" reported.
The Associated Press
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It's a good thing we don't even pretend to do contact tracing.
Can you imagine - "Who have you been in contact with in the past 5 days?"
I know exactly who and when I have been in contact with. I keep a log. I realize that not everyone will do that, but as I have basically become a recluse and only go out when absolutely necessary, it really hasn't been difficult.
Why don't you simply use the tracing app that the government has put at our disposition?
... ... oh, wait...
I don't trust aps so I am doing it old school....paper trail.
The rare times I do go to a store, I try to at least get the first names of any clerks I interact with.
Contact tracing is unworkable in a society that is constantly on the move and mostly anonymous to each other.
There's nothing to be done! Covid is a fatality! Everyone is going to be infected, and we might as well all accept it...
"It is what it is!"
The venue requires those who attend to register, including vendors. I think there will be a way to do contact tracing but I don't think that's the biggest issue here. The biggest issue is that we have a large faction of Americans who don't care if they murder other Americans as long as they get to do what they want to do........ride motorcycles, go to the beach, party at someone's house, get their nails done, or protest.
The messaging war on this virus has been hijacked and politicized.
Go back and re-read my post or maybe enable your text to speech reader if you're having trouble.
Since most of the bikers are from out of state if they contact the virus in Sturgis they'll be bringing back to their home town.
As if they care if they do.
Not that unusual. Sturgis is hardly an outlier.
In my county in Michigan this summer out of state plates have outnumbered Michigan plates 2 or 3 to one and many of those Michigan plates come from bigger city hot spots.
None of it makes any sense to me. I try to stay away from that nonsense as much as possible. People are just too selfish to stay home for a summer. Pretty much across the board.
Understood but that is not what I’m talking about. Most are vacationers in these parts. Their shit gets shut down so they come here. It’s pretty messed up really.
I feel ya, saw my dad for the first time in five months Friday.
Trump's June 20 Tulsa Rally was a bust - only six thousand people in a venue for fifteen thousand. But still... six thousand people, shouting... spewing into the air. There was a spike in Covid-19 cases in Tulsa a week later. Since the government has done nothing to implement tracing, we cannot KNOW that the spike is due to the Rally, but hey!
So now we have a 250-thousand-person rally. What could possibly go wrong?
How many more deaths, so a bunch of morons can demonstrate just how stupid and egotistical they are?
Good point.
Perhaps you can put in a good word for the protestors and rioters to say home as well.
Thx
Sorry but people that are protesting injustice, that see no other recourse or even like the people protesting what happened in Beirut are nothing like people gathering for a party.
I say this as I wouldn't go to either one yet there is a difference.
Don't be sorry ...... rioting and looting accomplishes little positive for civilized society. Especially if you happen to be an innocent being rioted on or looted. Funny thing is, those shitbirds never "protest" in the winter because they are too big of pussies to come out in the cold.
They are are total wastes of hydrogen, oxygen and a few other trace elements.
Total
I guess the about 100 arrests at this 'rally' are proof of their commitment to peace.
Nothing beats hundreds of drunk bikers on the streets.
Gee, have you heard the damage estimates in Sturgis because of these drunk bikers? If you know what it is, we can compare it to say, Portland?
84 arrests.............for driving under the influence.
226 citations...........no details.
Damages????? probably next to none. Bikers aren't into shitting in their own "cages".
What makes you think they aren't peaceful? Any reports of looting? Arson? Assault? I doubt you'll find much of that.
Most of them are probably either drunk (while driving) or in possession of illegal drugs.
I don't think Ender knows who attends Sturgis.
It isn't motorcycle gangs going there for the most part, but enthusiasts, collectors, doctors, lawyers, accountants, teachers, etc.
Sure, it is a party, and lots of folks getting drunk. Bet the murder rate is lower than it was for that little ragtag group who took over several blocks of a city!
I am just laughing at the rules of the game. It seems to be ok to malign one group yet not the other.
Yet as I pointed out to begin with, trying to compare the two is ridiculous in itself.
One is a big party where the other is not.
Hmmmmm ..... i haven't heard about any rioting or looting in Sturgis ..... did i miss something?
Considering you seem to think all the protesters are rioters and looters, I would say yes.
Wrong!
Show me where i said that or stop trying to put words in my mouth
I thought you put me on ignore? I guess not eh?
That said, another miss for you. I never said all protestors are rioters or looters because i don't think they are. I think people who riot and loot, are rioters and looters.
Hope that finally clears it up for my fan club .....
These 250,000 people don't care if they infect 25,000,000. Its that simple.
Exactly.
Let's face it , many of them have as much as said so. They are not really interested in preventing the spread of the virus. It is not something that they feel concerns them.
But... but... but...
Our Leaders have been so ardent in stressing the importance of protecting each other...
... ... right?
Anyone who attended, gets sick, and dies from CV should have to wear that stupid assed tee shirt "I SURVIVED CORONA IN STURGIS" when buried.
I did Sturgis some years ago, and it was a lot of fun.
Based on that experience and what I know of the area, it’s hard to be too judgmental of them over this. By that, I mean I won’t accuse them of being greedy.
It’s a tiny town of about 7,000, swelling to sometimes 100 times that amount for the rally. It’s not like Daytona, where they have other stuff going on year round. The rally in Sturgis is like their whole economy. Nothing else goes on there for 355 days and then the bikers come. I imagine the whole town would go broke if they didn’t have the rally, diminished though it is for this year. I’m not sure what else to tell them to do. I hope they do what they can to minimize spread of the virus, but I kind of doubt we’ll see much in that regard.
On the bright side, at least most of it is outside. That should help a little.
Why should people who have already had it and tested clear have to wear masks?
Because they can be clear one day and infected the next.
Last I heard you can't get it again
There have been cases of repeat occurrences of disease, although it is unclear whether they are new infections or reactivation of the initial infection.
I kinda sorta wished I'd caught it while my office was closed down. Would have been a lot more convenient. Then I started reading about recurrences, and thought "nah".
Frankly I find it difficult to believe we don’t have those answers yet five plus months into it.
I hope that isn’t willful.
I think it's been a matter of difficulty keeping up with a rapidly expanding knowledge base, combined with limitations in testing ability. Here 11 patients who experience a recurrence were followed through both occurrences.
To me, the fact that healthcare workers without comorbidities who had previously recovered returned to work with Covid-19 patients, and were therefore re-exposed, came down it again, raises some red flags. It does not bode well for herd immunity via infection.
Possibly not. Immunity to the coronaviruses that cause the common cold doesn't seem to last long, and it may be the same with this one. It may also be that it enters a latent phase, something like chicken pox or herpes, and can reactivate later. I don't know if we have yet seen enough recurrences, and have been able to discern between new infections or reactivations, to be sure if it's one, the other, or both going on.
I believe one pharmaceutical company is working on a vaccine that results in cell-mediated immunity, as well as antibody production, and is having some promising results, but I also believe it's early days on that.
There is no such thing as a normal virus. Each behaves in their own way, yet most we have a vaccine for. The mumps, measles, and polio are all in the same class of virus as this COVID and we have vaccines for them.
As Sandy pointed out, we don't know if they are getting it again. Mono seems to go away and so does pneumonia and then seems to come back, but it really hasn't gone away.
Anyone who gets fever blisters can tell you that the herpes virus responsible for them can come back repeatedly throughout life. Some people can go for months or years between outbreaks, but a time of stress or a bit too much sun exposure causes a reactivation.
No, there's not.
Going back to earlier in the thread, I think this is a good reason why someone who has tested negative, and perhaps even someone who has had the virus, should still consider wearing a mask in a crowd, like the one at Sturgis.
I get it. I wear a KN95 mask and cover gown all day. I've closed my waiting room, and we take patients' temps when they arrive. Any symptoms of Covid, and we reschedule. The checkout counter and door handles are disinfected after every patient, and we make sure patients don't encounter each other in the hallways.
Better to give up your clothes and your lunch than your health. Glad you stayed safe.
I also have two employees who take care of elderly mothers in poor health. We have to be careful for their sake. I recently benched one employee for a week because she'd possibly been exposed through her husband, but it fortunately turned out to be a false alarm. He tested negative. Also better safe than sorry.
I'm sorry to hear that. It has to be hard for him and you both.
My Uncle has cancer and diabetes now on top of it. Not doing well. He went into diabetic shock and my Aunt had to call an ambulance. They revived him yet he refused to go to hospital. Happened again and they took him to hospital.
He was pissed and said he would rather die at home than alone in a hospital room.
I can kinda understand that in a way yet that would not be easy for my Aunt.
Strange times.
You make an important point.
Covid-19 is new to medical science. Everything must be learned from zero.
Practitioners have done marvels: they have discovered treatments that have cut the mortality rate to under 1%. (It was as high as 5% when Wuhan doctors were just beginning.)
Vaccine research is both encouraging and discouraging. It appears that a vaccine will be developed within a few months... but no one knows what immunity it will bring (how sure? how long?).
People are accustomed to relative certainty from science. We have no certainty with Covid-19. The public is observing as scientists discover.
We're not used to this!
I can assure you...that's bullshit.
So far, there has not been one recorded case of reinfection according to Dr. Agus on CBS. We were told that immunity would only last 3 to 6 months, it's now been 10 since this started last November. The instances that they thought were re-occurrences were actually people who didn't fully recover and relapsed.
Can you "assure us" of that?
There have been people hospitalized with this for as much as two months, which means, in some, it hangs in there even it they're asymptomatic, the thing about being asymptomatic is your body isn't doing the usual things to fight a virus which is what the coughing, sneezing, runny nose, etc. are.
Well at least this "talking head" tried to cover himself after stating that (because him stating that meant the fear factor from this virus would be lessened), he then went on to say, to keep the fear of it alive, that when reinfections start occurring the people would be far more worse off than the first time they had it.
so does pneumonia
As someone who has had it 5 times in spite of getting a shot each year, you are correct.
And that is why I think that an antiviral may be helpful, but people don't understand that any medication that ends in "vir" is an antiviral. It's not simply pushing a more expensive medication for experimentation... it was designed for viruses! That's why the medical community wants to use Remdesivir for C19, but with our president
pushing hydroxychloroquine and insisting that it's effective [which is still not proven], people don't want the more expensive antiviral! 
If I had gone to Dr in April with what I went just before New Years they would have told me to quarantine myself, instead of just giving me cough syrup at first and then having to go back 3 more times. I felt bad and mostly stayed home for 2 weeks .I had every symptom on the list. 5 days before I felt bad I was around several people who had just returned from a trip to China,
Have you been tested for COVID?
Twice, both negative