So we should ask how we can make gatherings safer. It’s important for Americans to find ways to come together. The simple interpretation of the large outbreak after Sturgis is that big gatherings are just not possible during a pandemic. Large gatherings like rallies, festivals and fairs are the biggest test of what our society can do in a pandemic. Over the past year, every time we have tried to defy the virus by scorning precautions, the virus has won, and people have suffered and died: significant outbreaks, a lot of hospitalizations, too many deaths. Large gatherings that work on keeping indoor spaces safe through vaccinations, masking, ventilation and other techniques can keep the entire gathering safer. Most of the spread likely happened in the evenings, when people crowded into bars and restaurants, most unvaccinated, all unmasked. At Sturgis, it is unlikely that the outdoor bike rallies were a problem. The result? Of the hundreds of thousands of fans who attended the festival, only a few hundred have subsequently tested positive - and it is unclear whether any of them were infected at Lollapalooza.Įighteen months into the pandemic, we’ve learned that outdoor gatherings are reasonably safe - it’s the indoor activities that invariably follow that are deadly. And those attending were asked to accept a “Lollapalooza Fan Health Pledge” promising they had not tested positive or been exposed to covid within two weeks or experienced any covid symptoms within 48 hours. Anyone unvaccinated was required to wear masks throughout, even though the festival was outdoors. All those attending were required to provide proof of vaccination or a negative coronavirus test. That may be an indicator that population immunity from vaccinations is better and more protective than immunity from infections.Ĭonsider also this summer’s Lollapalooza music festival in Chicago. Why? Because most of the people in Provincetown were vaccinated. There were very few hospitalizations and no deaths. Provincetown unfortunately also led to a spike in cases - but the infection numbers peaked quickly, dwindled and were gone three weeks later. The first example is what happened in Provincetown, Mass., over the July 4 weekend. And here we can look to other examples where high levels of vaccinations or other tools helped prevent a lot of illness and death. We can begin to get things back to a new normal. The good news is that the outbreak doesn’t have to mean we rule all of that out.
![iron horse bike rally iron horse bike rally](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/36/db/2a/36db2a2e16ce003bf6036be4b97a1a7e.jpg)
Much of the region was aflame because of Sturgis, probably causing thousands of deaths.ĭoes the large Sturgis outbreak this year mean we can’t stage large gatherings? The answer affects things far beyond bike rallies: music festivals, state fairs, large concerts and so much more. Last year, after Sturgis, we saw massive outbreaks across the Dakotas, Wyoming, Indiana, even Nevada. We can expect to see big increases in other states, too, since bikers returned home from the event. In the weeks since the rally began in early August, infection numbers have shot up more than 600 percent in South Dakota. But unfortunately, that’s not what happened.
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If it had gone off without big spikes in covid cases, it would have provided strong evidence that this level of population immunity - around 75 percent - would allow us to get back to the way we did things in 2019. That’s what makes Sturgis an important test. South Dakota, despite its middling vaccination rates, probably has among the highest levels of population immunity in the nation, driven largely by horrifying winter outbreaks. The best data suggests that at least 75 percent of the entire South Dakota population has some degree of immunity against the virus: About half of South Dakotans have immunity because they’ve been infected by covid-19, and about half of the population has been vaccinated - some of whom have already had covid-19 when they got their shot, so there is some overlap between these two groups. If there were a place where this could have happened, it should have been Sturgis. By bringing together hundreds of thousands of people, Sturgis helps answer a simple yet critically important question: Are we at a point in the pandemic where we can safely stage big-crowd events? It was also a serious pandemic stress test.
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The annual Sturgis motorcycle rally in South Dakota is America’s largest bike rally, a 10-day blowout, with attendance this year exceeding 250,000. 14, 2020, file photo fans attend a performance by Saul at the Iron Horse Saloon during the 80th annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, in Sturgis, S.D.