THE TRUMP BRAND:

A 460,000-person motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota in August may be the cause for large coronavirus outbreaks in the Midwest, according to a report from the Washington Post.

As of mid-September, 330 cases and one death were directly linked to the rally, but these numbers are likely extremely deflated due to the fact that South Dakota health authorities did not carry out contact tracing for people at the rally, particularly those who traveled long distances from neighboring states to attend. In fact, South Dakota had imposed no restrictions or limitations on gatherings at all, which is why this event--the largest public gathering in the United States since the beginning of the pandemic--was permitted.

At this point, it's impossible to tell exactly how many outbreaks occurred as a result of the Sturgis rally; all we know is that beginning a few weeks after the event, South Dakota and its neighboring states saw steep increases in coronavirus case numbers, and that those trends have continued. Many cases that were likely related to Sturgis were not counted as such, including a cluster at a wedding where the original spreader had attended the rally.

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