The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

US biker meeting: study calculates drastic costs for corona superspreader event - and triggers heated dispute

2020-09-13T05:23:00.469Z


Is a single motorcycle meeting responsible for more than 250,000 new corona infections? A US study comes to this conclusion.


Is a single motorcycle meeting responsible for more than 250,000 new corona infections?

A US study comes to this conclusion.

  • After a

    motorcycle meeting

    , the new corona infection rate * in the USA skyrocketed.

  • Four scientists therefore classify the biker meeting as a

    superspreader event

    for Sars-CoV-2 *.

  • The

    University of San Diego's

    Corona * study is now being

    hotly debated.

Sturgis (South Dakota) / USA - There is currently a

dispute

in the US media about a

Corona *

superspreader study

.

Their results were: This year's

biker meeting

in the US small town of

Sturgis

in the state of

South Dakota

attracted more than 450,000

participants from all over the country

who took the

mask requirement

and

distance

- and probably

250,000

new infections * with Sars-CoV-2 * .

The study's authors are four

US economists

who also put a price tag on the consequences they extrapolated: new healthcare costs of more than

twelve billion dollars

.

The study, entitled

"The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally and Covid-19"

, was carried out at the

Center for Health Economics & Policy Studies (CHEPS) at

the

University of San Diego

.

Dhaval Dave, Andrew I. Friedson, Drew McNichols and

Joseph J. Sabia

evaluated, among other things, anonymized

mobile phone data of

the participating motorcyclists.

The motorcycle meeting took place from August 7 to 16 - the city administration of Sturgis had approved it despite concerns about major events in the corona pandemic *.

The increase now estimated by the study corresponds to around

19 percent of

all corona cases reported in the USA between August 2 and September 2.

Coronavirus in the USA: Biker meeting identified as a superspreader event

“Given the total cost, you could have paid each of the 462,182 visitors $

26,553

to not attend,” the

Washington Post

drew

from the

Study.

Immediately there was opposition.

Kristi Noem, Republican

governor of South Dakota

and supporter of US President Donald Trump *, told

Fox

that the study was based on completely wrong numbers.

The technology magazine

Wired,

however, pointed out that the authors are economists, not

virologists

: "There was a lot of

math

at work here." This is not a reproach to the study authors - but the study shows that the US authorities urgently need a better one

Need

to collect

data

on the pandemic.

Superspreader event motorcycle meeting: number of corona tests, infection rate, number of unreported cases

In the observed number of cases alone is not reliable, according to the report further, as will strictly gehaushaltet with corona tests in the US and the

underreporting

of infections could be higher by five to ten times.

According to

data expert Rex Douglas

from the University of San Diego, the

number of cases is

at best good enough to show a

“trend”

.

"The conclusion that the biker meeting in Sturgis was a

superspreader event

is certainly correct - it would be shocking if not - but the

methodology of

the study does not reveal anything about its

severity

," Douglas told

Wired

.

This is by no means an argument for corona deniers.

"We cannot observe what would have happened if the biker meeting in Sturgis had not happened," said study co-author Joseph Sabia to the magazine about the investigation.

* Merkur.de is part of the Ippen-Digital editorial network.

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2020-09-13

Similar news:

Trends 24h

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.