Since this weekend and for the next ten days, thousands of bikers participate in the town of Sturgis, in South Dakota, in the United States, in a concentration that could be one of the largest agglomerations of people since the beginning of the pandemic of coronavirus in the country. The fear is that Republican Gov. Kristi Noem has not issued any confinement or mandatory mask orders since the beginning of the health crisis, so the meeting could be a bomb for the spread of the virus.
The governor herself boasted of her management of the pandemic in an interview for the Fox network on August 4: “We are doing very well, and that is the story that must be told. I have trusted my people, and they trust me. They have taken individual responsibility for dealing with the virus, ”explained Noem. The death rate from the coronavirus in the state of South Dakota has been eleven times lower than that of New York.
Despite being far from the attendance of other years, in which there have been a visit of half a million people who have injected some 670 million euros into the state's economy, in this 80th edition about 100,000 motorists are expected to arrive spread over the next 10 days to the small town. The images of the video that accompanies this news, show a river of people without masks advancing through the endless lines of parked motorcycles.
More than 60% of the local population responded in a city council survey that they wanted the event to be canceled, but the leaders decided to go ahead with the celebrations during the vote on June 15, although they canceled all the events sponsored by the city council and they promoted measures such as hydroalcoholic gel stalls for the hands.
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