The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally took place in Sturgis, SD between August 7 and 16 and attracted over 450,000 people. Rock and metal acts like Buckcherry, Trapt, Fozzy, Drowning Pool, Quiet Riot, Smash Mouth, Adelitas Way, Saving Abel, and Night Ranger played the festival, where masks were quite optional. While some of our coverage focused on Trapt being generally terrible at everything, we also posted about seven new COVID-19 cases being linked to the rally. Unfortunately that number has drastically risen.
According to Consequence of Sound, health officials across eight states have confirmed a total of over 100 new COVID-19 cases linked to the rally. The two states most affected are South Dakota with 40 documented cases and Minnesota with 35 documented cases. Keep in mind these are just documented cases. The actual number is most likely worse.
The Star Tribune further reports an analysis of anonymous cell phone data from Camber Systems, saying "that 61% of all the counties in the U.S. have been visited by someone who attended Sturgis, creating a travel hub that was comparable to a major U.S. city."
"Imagine trying to do contact tracing for the entire city of (Washington), D.C., but you also know that you don't have any distancing, or the distancing is very, very limited, the masking is limited," said Navin Vembar, who co-founded Camber Systems. "It all adds up to a very dangerous situation for people all over the place. Contact tracing becomes dramatically difficult."
So thanks, everyone who irresponsibly attended the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. You're not helping and you're likely responsible for the death of someone who didn't even go.
