One problem with this prediction is that people who caught the original COVID-19 only have a reduced chance of catching delta. I don’t have any numbers to back this up, but it seems the vaccines are more effective against delta than infection with original COVID-19, as that seems to be part of the logic of telling them to get vaccinated anyways.
An important factor is that Sturgis rally attendees will be heading back to their home states/locales, many of which will have poorer vaccine uptake than South Dakota.
Maybe there should be a remake of The Wild One with emphasis on going viral. Adam Sandler could play the outlaw biker who can’t stop coughing and sneezing.
Yes! I think that’s going to be even harder to track this time since it will coincide with school openings; kids seem to be more susceptible to D than other variants. But I remember a post-Sturgis surge in the midwest and Wyoming. SD, ND, MN, WI, NE, etc. Many of these states reported Surgis origins in their contact tracing.
Back in post 171, I drew a map of the top surging states in the US 3 months after Sturgis. They all formed a cluster around Sturgis. I wouldn’t be shocked to see roughly the same map in 2-3 months.
These people will be fine. They’ll use a 9mm automatic with a 15 round capacity and only load one bullet. One chance in fifteen. Probably better than a vaccine. What could go wrong?
/s
I just learned that my nephew and his wife, both in the lifesaving profession, went to Sturgis UNvaccinated. I know this because my brother called me this evening to tell me his wife, my sister in law, my nephew’s mother, is in the hospital and may lose a leg. Nephew is isolating for 10 days (good for him) so can’t visit her.
I’m confused - did your nephew and his wife lie about being vaccinated, or did you think they were because of their professions?
Very sorry to hear about your SIL’s leg, hope it turns out better than that.
I thought I’d been told they were vaccinated, apparently I was mistaken. And yes some of the latter: I couldn’t imagine they were unvaccinated given what they do.
Oof…”unvaccinated health workers attend high-potential superspreader event” is… well, granted, it appears to be the story of these 2021 United States, but still.
Premature (and a bit lacking in evidence) to attribute it solely to Sturgis, but Meade Co, SD, is currently one of the hotspots in the state. And South Dakota has seen a rather marked increase (paywalled link) in cases and hospitalizations the last 2 weeks. Testing really spiked within the last week, which isn’t a great sign for things to come in the next week or so.
Shouldn’t be paywalled. I thought NYT had made COVID pages available without subscription.
This showed up in the Daily Kos today. Not paywalled.
There seems to be a very definite spike in Meade county
Last year it took around three months to see the full impact of the event. I’m guessing we’ll see the spread over neighboring states much sooner this time, thanks to what appears to be a much higher basic reproductive number for the Delta variant.
Meade county is in for a whole lotta hurt. It’s vaccination rate is abysmal.
Yep. Already happening. Meade county is the worst but nearly all the counties in west SD are following close behind.
Maybe this is a dumb question, but could the neighboring states sue Noem for allowing this even to happen again to the determent of their people;s health for a second year in a row?
They can try, but whether or not the Supreme Court would take the case is anybody’s guess.
True, but think of the cost to SD taxpayers to defend against multiple states’ negligence cases as they wend their way through the process!!
Maybe @elfkin477 is on to something here! I don’t know what rules and regulations would govern states suing each other, though.
I don’t either, but I do know it’s possible for states to sue each other in at least some circumstances: New Hampshire sued Massachusetts over their new tax on people who live in New Hampshire and work from home for Massachusetts companies. (spoiler alert: it didn’t go well for NH)
I’m convinced of the causal nature of the flareup last year, but…
The real problem is proving the chain of custody of the virus. 
If you recall, the claims at this time last year were that only a hundred or so people could trace their illness back to Sturgis (they weren’t trying really hard to find links of a secondary, tertiary, quaternary, etc. nature), even though the map showed pretty clearly that 3 months later Sturgis was right in the middle of the 11 states with the highest per capita daily case rate in the entire country.