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

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 has skyrocketed.

• Four scientists therefore classify the biker meeting as a

  superspreader event

  .

• Now the study by the

  University of San Diego is

  hotly debated.

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

in the US media about a

.

Their results were: This year's

in the small US town of

in the state of

attracted more than 450,000

participants from all over the country

who took the

and

- and probably

new infections * with Sars-CoV-2 * .

The study's authors are four

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

.

The study, entitled

, was carried out at the

the

.

Among others, Dhaval Dave, Andrew I. Friedson, Drew McNichols and

evaluated

anonymized

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

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 $

to not attend,” the

drew

from the

Study.

Immediately there was opposition.

Kristi Noem, Republican

and supporter of US President Donald Trump *, told

that the study was based on completely wrong numbers.

The technology magazine

however, pointed out that the authors are economists, not

: "There was a lot of

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

to collect

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

of infections could be higher by five to ten times.

According to

from the University of San Diego, the

number of cases is

at best good enough to show a

.

"The conclusion that the biker meeting in Sturgis was a

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

the study does not reveal anything about its

," Douglas told

.

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.