super-spreader

see FAIL 3

see Alt fact

neglected

at what pt do i make this primary?

south Dakota COVID cases explode after Sturgis motorcycle rally

August 26, 2021

For the second year in a row, the Sturgis motorcycle rally has become a super-spreader event. In the 14 days since the rally, Meade County has had more than 1,500 percent increase in case

bikers and cty fans?

an 621

biden goal 70 by july 4 close; huge split red blue, delta grows fast #1 in weeks:

"boebert cty"

with around 65% of the U.S. population having been at least partially vaccinated for COVID-19, millions of Americans are celebrating the fact that they are less likely to die from the novel coronavirus — which, according to Johns Hopkins researchers in Baltimore, has killed more than 3.9 million people worldwide. Yet anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories on the far right are discouraging some Americans from getting vaccinated. And journalist Pilar Melendez, in an article published by the Daily Beast on June 25, points to non-vaccination as one of the reasons why COVID-19 is especially bad in a Colorado county.

"For the last seven weeks," Melendez reports, "health officials in Mesa County, Colorado, have been scrambling to contain the highly transmissible Delta variant of the novel coronavirus. But now, as a huge music festival kicks off, time may be up. As the first location in Colorado to positively identify the presence of the variant deemed potentially more deadly and at least 50% more contagious on May 5, the county, nestled at the state's border with Utah, only had five cases. Within a month, with the vaccination rate in the area low, the variant positivity rate soared 2500%."

Melendez adds, "And health-care officials believe that number will only go higher — especially with the start ofCountry Jam, the state's largest three-day music festival that has already sold 50,000 tickets. The potential disaster site pitted vaccine holdouts against an extra-contagious variant of COVID-19 — one that may make people sicker, faster — in a local encapsulation of a phenomenon experts fear will play out in anti-vaxxer bastions nationwide."...

bunch of WH events, early one swear in cits pre trump hosp? bunch of xmas parties, jenna, all virtually maskless; evang; recently elected MOC KIA?

DC swarmed by MAGots

...the country to show their support for President Donald Trump. At one rally on Tuesday, the speaker, a coronavirus truther, directed hundreds of mostly maskless attendees closely-packed together to turn and hug each other.

"I'm going to give everyone three action steps, and we're going to peace out – I'm going to peace out," the unknown speaker tells the crowd. He then claims the coronavirus models, tests, and even cases are "fake," which is false.

"Gee, they're grabbing your freedoms," he continues.

Apparently, in an effort to prove his lie, he says, "turn to the person next to you and give them a hug. Someone you don't know. Go hug somebody. Spread it out. Mass spreader. It's a mass-spreader event! It's a mass-spreader event!"

"There you go, hug it out," he adds.

Attendees were only too happy to comply.

The U.S. has suffered over 360,000 coronavirus deaths, and more than 20 million cases – including more than 190,000 new cases just yesterday.

[twt]

another White House super-spreader event: Trump to 'celebrate ... ›

:{sinclair stations set to air Eric Bolling monologue claiming masks and lockdown precautions do not help slow the spread of COVID-19:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:

10/15/20 4:33 PM EDT

an 1020 one might think low density pop rural red states do best, but ND worst?

https://www.mediamatters.org/cnn/cnns-rick-santorum-claims-trump-rallies-are-not-highly-spreadable-events-studies-and-reports

rICK SANTORUM (CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR): Well look, the fact of the matter is that the president -- people at these rallies -- recommend that people wear masks and they also have them outside. And you just heard from Gov. DeWine, who is, you know, who has been pretty strict in the state of Ohio saying that these -- that the virus doesn't spread, and we know this from public health officials, it doesn't spread outside anywhere near.

Most of these spreads occurred in people's homes in small confined areas. We have known that for six months andeveryone seems to ignore the fact that these are not highly spreadable events when most people, a lot of people are wearing masks, and it's outside.And so let's just -- you want to talk about science, let's deal with the science that that's not where the virus is spreading.

...

DAVID AXELROD (CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR): When he mocks Laura Ingraham at a rally for wearing a mask and saying you're trying to be politically correct, when he stands on a stage and mocks the vice president for wearing a mask, that has an impact, Rick. I mean, that's -- you know, yes, there is science about outdoor versus indoor. It is true that people -- outdoor gatherings are also proscribed in lots of places in this country because it does have an impact. But the mocking of people for wearing masks has had an impact on the country and he is still doing it even as we are reaching this horrible new peak.

JAKE TAPPER (HOST): Amanda?

...

AMANDA CARPENTER (CNN CONTRIBUTOR): Yeah, I was struck by something that Gov. DeWine said in the previous interview where he talked about how we're at war with this virus.

...

CARPENTER: And a key piece of this war is wearing a mask. You wouldn’t send soldiers into the battlefield without equipment. And that is what Donald Trump is doing every day by congregating these people together where they can spread it. They made the Supreme Court nomination of Amy Coney Barrett, which should have been a good event for Republicans, into a superspreader event. We have seen Republican leaders be struck down with the illness and still continue to go to the events. And so at some point we have to get some agreement about health and safety, and Donald Trump has been the worst example that we can imagine for that.

...

SANTORUM: Yeah, look, the reality is that 70% of the people who are getting infected, who are getting this infection, wear masks all the time. So the idea that is a mask is a silver bullet that's going to stop people from getting it -- it's where you are and how you are --

[CROSS-TALK]

SANTORUM: No, this is a CDC number. Don't go, “Oh, come on,"70% is a CDC number.

TAPPER: No, that's a misreading of that study. The study was -- that's not accurate. I don't want to get into that whole CDC -- look, obviously, a mask is not a silver bullet.

SANTORUM: It is not a silver bullet.

TAPPER: But that study was trying to figure out how those individuals got the virus and 42% of the people who got the virus had been in close contact with somebody that was infected, and then a lot of those people also had been in a restaurant dining, some of whom were indoors. So that was a misrepresentative statistic.

Contrary to Santorum's claims, a study by Stanford researchers estimated that Trump's rallies over the summer led to “30,000 incremental confirmed cases of COVID-19” and “likely led to more than 700 deaths.” This follows recent reporting suggesting that Trump’s campaign rallies may have contributed to multiple community outbreaks across the country. In one instance following a June rally in Tulsa, an outbreak even occurred among Secret Service agents, and coronavirus cases climbed in the city in the subsequent days.

Notably, CNN's Jake Tapper did correctly refute Santorum's misreading of a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about COVID-19 spread. As Media Matters' Matt Gertz recently noted:

Based on a survey of 314 people from 11 health care facilities, it focused on the impact of going to public places where masks cannot easily be worn, such as restaurants with on-site eating and bars. The study concluded that “adults with positive SARS-CoV-2 test results were approximately twice as likely to have reported dining at a restaurant than were those with negative SARS-CoV-2 test results.” It also found that close contact with someone who also tested positive was a major risk factor.

“It’s misleading to leap to conclusions about the effectiveness of masks from the CDC report, since most participants reported wearing them and the study was not controlling for mask use,” PolitiFact pointed out after reviewing it and speaking to experts.

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/the-nations-worst-governor-trump-superfan-kristi-noem-is-a-rising-gop-star-but-she-may-have-mismanaged-the-crisis-worst-of-all

sofia t salon

south Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican who is the first woman to lead that rural and sparsely populated state, is taking her turn in the national hot seat as the Mount Rushmore State has become the nation’s latest coronavirus “hot spot.” In distinctly Trump-like fashion, the Trump-friendly Noem has turned to right-wing outlets like Fox News tolash out at critical media coverage and rail against an “elite class of so-called experts.” But as was the case with Florida’s Ron DeSantis, Georgia’s Brian Kemp and Arizona’s Doug Ducey, conservative media has rushed to circle the wagons around Noem just as the fuller picture of her failed handling of the coronavirus crisis becomes clearer.

South Dakota is now considered in the “red zone” for COVID-19 cases after ranking as the second-worst-hit state in the nation for new cases and test positivity per capita over the last two weeks, according to the latest document prepared for governors by the White House Coronavirus Task Force. But Noem is one of 14 Republican governors who have ignored the task force guidelines to curb the spread of COVID-19, even as the White House says that increasing case counts in South Dakota and “remarkably high” test positivity are “deeply concerning” given insufficient testing levels in the state.

While the World Health Organization’s benchmark for business re-openings is a 5% rate of positive tests, South Dakota has seen a positivity rate above 10% since Aug. 16.Both daily active cases and hospitalizations have more than doubled in South Dakota since the start of August, and no other state has seen such a rapid expansion rate. Over the past week, there have been an average of 236 confirmed cases per day, an increase of 48% from the average only two weeks earlier. That’s out of a total state population of roughly 885,000, which ranks 46th in the nation.

Despite such troubling trends, Noem is among the few state governors who never imposed a shelter-in-place order. Heradministration has refused to impose any restrictions on businesses or public activities, contrary to calls from South Dakota’s largest medical association. And Noem has resisted issuing a face-mask mandate — even though guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have said for months that everyone should wear a facial covering while in public to help curb the spread of the coronavirus. She’s even encouraged parents to send their kids back to school “without masks.” As of the end of August, more than 550 people had been infected at the state’s universities, with another 200 cases recently reported in K-12 schools.

noem initially attempted to conceal the latest statistics out of her state. When the Argus Leader, the daily newspaper in Sioux Falls, requesteda copy of the weekly reportssent to the state health department from the White House task force, Noem’s office refused. When Trump repeatedly touted the drug hydroxychloroquine as a potential COVID remedy, Noem was was among the first to launch a trial of the unproven drug, which was later quietly dropped.

Noem’s public rhetoric also has a distinctively Trumpian flavor. She recently asserted that “about 95% of the population … is not at risk for serious infection” and announced that “South Dakota is open for business” after four workers at a Smithfield Foods meatpacking plant in the state died and another 48 were hospitalized. She made a big show out of not requiring social distancing or masks at Trump’s pre-Fourth of July event at Mount Rushmore, appearing on Fox News with host Laura Ingraham to brag about the lack of safety precautions. The state reversed its longstanding fireworks ban and spent $1.5 million on the event. Noem reportedly even gifted Trump with “a four-foot replica of Mount Rushmore that included a fifth presidential likeness: his.” In return, the president flew her back to Washington aboard Air Force One.

Noem has been tying herself ever more closely to the president since narrowly winning election in 2018 — after a last-minute campaign push by Trump and Vice President Mike Pence helped her edge out her Democratic challenger in the closest South Dakota governor’s race in decades. Noem won a congressional seat in the Tea Party Republican wave of 2010, and served as her state’s sole House member for eight years, but only won 51% of the vote against Democrat Billie Sutton in what is generally a die-hard red state.

More recently, Noem — who :{counts onetime Trump campaign manager :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}::{Corey Lewandowski as a top adviser:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}: — has embarked on a multi-state campaign tour as an official surrogate for Trump’s re-election campaign. During the pandemic, she has traveled to Republican events in states like Ohio and Iowa, in the latter state finding a kindred spirit in Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds, who has also resisted a statewide mask mandate in the face of official recommendations amid a surge in cases. The 48-year-old Noem clearly aims to become a national right-wing star, and has spent $130,000 in taxpayer funds to build a studio in the basement of the State Capitol for her frequent Fox News appearances — including one this past week to defend her decision to promote the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, one of the largest public events held since the start of this pandemic.

More than 460,000 people from across North America descended on the small city of Sturgis, in western South Dakota, for the 10-day rally that ran Aug. 7-16. That came even after the city council surveyed local residents andfound that more than 62% opposed holding the rally. Sturgis officials went forward anyway, unable to say no to the $800 million in revenue the rally generates.

Most bikers and enthusiasts who attended the event did not wear masks or practice social distancing, as the Associated Press reported at the time. South Dakota shot up to No. 2 in the country in per capita cases shortly thereafter. It’s hard to conclude that’s merely a coincidence. As of last week, the AP had identified 290 cases in 12 states tied to the rally. In South Dakota, 118 residents who attended the rally have subsequently tested positive for COVID-19, and one has died. Noem has since allowed the state fair to continue as planned and announced plans to add a 13,000-person concert to the annual “Governor’s Hunt” that celebrates South Dakota’s pheasant season in October, which she has promised will be ” bigger and better than ever before.”

Noem now stands alongside Florida’s GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis, who allowed the Daytona Bike Week to proceed in March with 500,000 people attending, in terms of permitting potential super-spreader events. According to an Aug. 8 article by the New York Times’ Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman, Lewandowski unsuccessfully lobbied Trump to attend the Sturgis rally in an effort to boost Noem’s profile.

Her biggest turn in the spotlight so far came a few weeks later during her address to the Republican National Convention, in which Noem ignored the spread of coronavirus in her state in favor of culture-war platitudes about saving Confederate monuments from left-wing mobs. (South Dakota did not become a state until 1889, and the Dakota Territory played no role in the Civil War.) Noem then ordered the South Dakota Department of Tourism to run a 30-second spot she narrated on Fox News during the convention, at a price of $819,000. That was part of a $5 million tourism campaign using federal coronavirus relief funds that comes with great potential personal gain for the governor.

Like the president she admires, Noem has a history of using her office to boost family members.She hired her daughter as a policy analyst while the latter was still in college, and hired her son-in-law for a different position in the governor’s office. Her daughter got a promotion and hefty pay raise at a time when other state employees did not. Without citing any specific threats, Noem’s team proposed a $400,000 security fence to be erected around her residence, mostly at taxpayer expense.

Meanwhile, Noem has publicly boasted about turning down federal unemployment relief, citing a healthy state economy she attributes to never locking down. She rejected an additional $300 in unemployment benefits per week for unemployed South Dakotans, refusing to kick in the required $100 in state-provided benefits and claiming South Dakota had recovered nearly 80% of its job losses since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Noem told Fox News this week that her response has been “a balanced approach” and pointed to the state’s tax revenues, which who 8.7% more money coming in this fiscal year than projected.

Noem was quick, however, to reach out to the Trump administration to stop sovereign Native American nations from erecting coronavirus checkpoints on highways leading into their territory, even as the virus spread through Native communities. She told Trump in June that she needed federal assistance “to bring a prompt end to these unlawful tribal checkpoints/blockades on U.S./State highways” as “a final alternative to formal litigation.” It’s unclear what type of federal reinforcement she sought, but the governor later suggested that her opposition to coronavirus checkpoints in Indian Country was linked to the Keystone XL pipeline protests.

“‘For every action that we take, and the tribes take, they’re setting precedent,” Noem warned in a letter to the Department of Justice. “If we allow checkpoints to shut down traffic in this situation, then we are setting precedent for that to happen far into the future in many other situations as well.” She has subsequently refused to meet with the state legislature’s bipartisan State-Tribal Relations Committee.

Noem’s Trumpian words and deeds, along with her charismatic media appearances and her determination to strip benefits from the unemployed have made her favorite among virtually all factions of the right. Expect her to be a leading Republican presidential contender within the decade.

===

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/california-gop-leader-defied-order-to-hold-massive-prayer-rally-and-didnt-even-wear-a-mask/

california GOP leader defied quarantine order to hold massive prayer rally — and didn’t even wear a mask

Alex Henderson September 9, 2020

Shannon Grove, minority leader of the California State Senate, has been under quarantine — or at least she was supposed to be — after coming in close contact with a…

no lnx pix

Written by Alex Henderson September 9, 2020

Shannon Grove, minority leader of the California State Senate, has been under quarantine — or at least she was supposed to be — after coming in close contact with a fellow Republican who tested positive for COVID-19: California State Sen. Brian Jones, who was diagnosed on August 26. But that didn’t prevent Grove from attending a crowded Christian music event and rally in Sacramento on Sunday, September 6 — and according to Washington Post reporter Tim Elfrink, she wasn’t wearing a protective face mask.

The event, billed as Let Us Worship, was supposed to allow up to 1000 attendees and enforce social distancing measures, but according to the California Highway Patrol, around 3000 people showed up. Videos of the event, Elfrink noted, “showed virtually no social distancing or masks in the crowd”— and California Gov. Gavin Newsom is warning that the concert could turn out to be a superspreader event.

“It does not help to have thousands and thousands of people not practicing physical distancing or social distancing not wearing masks,” Newsom warned.

Sean Feucht, the musician and Christian fundamentalist who organized the Let Us Worship event, has been highly critical of social distancing measures — and when he appeared on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends,” he claimed that city officials were discriminating against Christianity.What he didn’t tell Fox News is that he might have been responsible for a superspreader event.

Grove, according to Elfrink, “took the stage on Sunday and spoke at length to the crowd — while failing to wear a mask.” Elfrink also notes that California health officials are “urging anyone who attended the prayer event to self-quarantine and monitor for symptoms.”

According to Sacramento County Health Director Peter Beilenson, the Let Us Worship event violated the safety guidelines that California has had in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Beilenson, speaking to the Los Angeles Times, said of the event, “Everyone was piled up. That’s a problem. It’s not a matter of if there will be an outbreak from this, it’s how big.”

https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/cell-phone-data-shows-sturgis-rally-attendees-later-visited-61-of-us-counties/

https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/massive-super-spreader-19-event-now-underway-in-south-dakota/

[pix Sturgis, South Dakota motorcycle rally in 2015. This year’s rally, now underway, is expected to attract 250,000 people.]

It would be too much to expect the millions of Americans who choose to celebrate their personal identity with intentionally loudand purposely obnoxious, high-polluting machines, operated at speeds in excess of 70 mph on our nation’s highways, with zero protection between themselves and the roadway, all to care equally about potentially infecting other people with an invisible virus.

Still, for at least a discrete subgroup of those folks who claim the “individual freedom” to face a fatality risk 26times the rate of other motorists, attendance at the annualSturgis motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota this year in the midst of the deadliest global pandemic in over a century, signifies a quantum leap of sorts in both irresponsibility and crass disregard not only for their own lives, but for the rest of the people in this country as well.

As reported by Michael Daly, special correspondent to the Daily Beast, starting on Friday, and for the next nine days, nearly a quarter million motorcycle aficionados, many driving thousands of miles from states all across the country, will congregate, backslapping, hugging, drinking, smoking, spitting, shouting, and expelling varied forms of bodily fluids from their orifices in a tiny South Dakota town, before returning home to spread whatever it is they might catch there to those who they interact with—stopping to sleep, eat, and urinate along the way for good measure.

Daly writes:

“Nobody is social distancing and none of them are wearing masks,” local psychologist Michael Fellner told The Daily Beast. “None.

The attendees for this event have come to Sturgis with the encouragement of South Dakota’s Republican governor, Kristi Noem,an acolyte of Donald Trump who has taken a highly visible, negative view towards any means of self-protection during the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, Noem has encouraged parents to send their small children back into public schools without masks,which she claims will increase, rather than decrease, the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Following Trump’s lead, Noem has also advocated and commissioned her state to engage in trials ofthe anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19 infections, despite guidance from the FDA warning against its use.

The rally is proceeding in large part to boost the South Dakota economy, as it normally generates several hundred millions of dollars in revenue. As reported by Daly, it is also proceeding despite the opposition of the majority of actual Sturgis residents. According to the The New York Times, over 60% of the town’s 7,000 citizens supported postponing the event.But the same residents believed they could do little to stop it, since the rally itself occurs on state-licensed property and the state, through Noem, has already sanctioned it. A phalanx of businesses, advertisers and “people outside the city,” according to the The Times, pressured the town to proceed, and the town’s City Council on June 15th voted 8-1 to go ahead with the rally, although city-sponsored events related to it were canceled.

As Daly reports, many of these attendee bikers have already expressed their disdain for preventive measures as well as the seriousness of the pandemic itself on social media.

“On my way I ain’t scared of the media flue or as we call it round here election fluesee ya soon sd,” J.F. Watson of Ohio said.

“Just call it a big protest !! And it be A-Ok!!” J. Toothman, also of Ohio, suggested.

The Sturgis rally is being reported as the largest public gathering since the COVID-19 pandemic began. But what particularly distinguishes it is the widespread disregard of the participants for preventative health measures to ward off potential infection, and the risk of broader spread of the virus once participants leave Sturgis. Reuters published an article on Friday describing the attendees as they arrive, through the eyes of Meade County Sheriff, Rob Merwin.

The sheriff’s office overlooks Sturgis’ Main Street and from Merwin’s vantage point, he saw few precautions taken as the town began to fill up Thursday evening.

“I’m sitting here and I’m watching people walk up and down the street, watching people ride up and down the street.A few have masks – most don’t,” he said. “There’s not much we can do. Everybody is coming here with their eyes wide open, they know what they’re getting into.”

In fact, it appears that many of them do know “what they’re getting into.” It’s just that they don’t particularly care. Most of these people have been fed six months of science denial and propaganda about the COVID-19 virus, by everyone from Donald Trump to Kristi Noem, down to their enablers on Fox News, all of it geared to stoke their delusions about how their “personal freedom” is being taken away by wearing masks, avoiding large gatherings and practicing social distancing. In Sturgis what we arewitnessing is the apotheosis of all that, a toxic blend of ignorance, insouciance, and arrogance in a small but significant subset population that prides itself on being “set apart” from the rest of society.

The problem is that in the context of an equal-opportunity pandemic, no one is set apart. Just as many of the attendees are likely to arrive already infected, and are likely to infect others while there, once they leave for home and parts unknown, millions of other Americans will be forced to deal with the health consequences of their “choices.”

So much for that “freedom.”