quote:

ORIGINAL: Lynn G.

Just speaking for myself, I'm a freelance writer - so I'm my own boss. I give myself permission to post whenever I want.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Lynn G.

Just speaking for myself, I'm a freelance writer - so I'm my own boss. I give myself permission to post whenever I want.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Lynn G.

But you have to admit people also should stop whining that government workers have too many vacation days and are lazy - because probably 90% of the people online during working hours are NOT government workers.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Lynn G.

"What kind of country are we?"

That's one of the things that has been keeping me up at night. Partly with regard to Covid and how so many people are unwilling to do even the smallest thing (wear a mask) to help prevent the spread. One of my FB friends, who I used to think was a very nice young woman, has said twice in different threads that "it's not our job to keep other people safe."

Who thinks like that? Like if you're driving along and someone on a bicycle darts out in front of you, you slam on the brakes, right? Not for yourself because you're pretty safe in that 2000 pound car, but for the other person. And yes, it IS your job. It would be a crime if you didn't at least make an attempt to stop, and witness accounts, plus the electronic tracking in your car, would tell if you didn't attempt to prevent hitting him.

But Covid is just the tip of the iceberg. The permission to be racist, and violent, and hateful has let loose a really ugly underbelly of our society. I still like to think people like that are a small minority, but the very existence of it is scary. And the numbers of people who believe absurd conspiracy theories is mind-numbing.

Yes. What kind of country are we? I'm not sure we want to hear the answer.

quote:

ORIGINAL: bohumm

quote:

ORIGINAL: Lynn G.

But you have to admit people also should stop whining that government workers have too many vacation days and are lazy - because probably 90% of the people online during working hours are NOT government workers.

Exactly. That's what prompted me to post. I've worked in the public school system, non-profit, healthcare, Fortune 500-type corporate, and media settings, and I can tell you that there is the same mixed bag of effort and focus and intensity throughout.

quote:

ORIGINAL: David Levine

Well...that escalated quickly:

Sturgis Motorcycle Rally Is Now Linked to More Than 250,000 Coronavirus Cases

For indispensable reporting on the coronavirus crisis, the election, and more, subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily newsletter.
The inevitable fallout from last month’s Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, an annual event that packed nearly 500,000 people into a small town in South Dakota, is becoming clear, and the emerging picture is grim.

According to a new study, which tracked anonymized cellphone data from the rally, over 250,000 coronavirus cases have now been tied to the 10-day event, one of the largest to be held since the start of the pandemic. It drew motorcycle enthusiasts from around the country, many of whom were seen without face coverings inside crowded bars, restaurants, and other indoor establishments.

The explosion in cases, the study from the Germany-based IZA Institute of Labor Economics finds, is expected to reach $12 billion in public health costs.

“The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally represents a situation where many of the ‘worst-case scenarios’ for super-spreading occurred simultaneously,” the researchers wrote, “the event was prolonged, included individuals packed closely together, involved a large out-of-town population, and had low compliance with recommended infection countermeasures such as the use of masks.”

The conclusion, while staggering, is unlikely to surprise to public health officials who warned that proceeding with the rally could be disastrous, particularly given the region’s relaxed attitude towards social distancing guidelines and some of the attendees’ mockery of the pandemic. “Screw COVID. I went to Sturgis,” read one t-shirt from the rally, where overwhelming support for President Trump was the norm.

The study comes on the heels of the first reported death from the event, a Minnesota man in his 60’s who attended the rally who died last week. South Dakota now has one of the country’s highest rates of coronavirus cases.

https://www.motherjones.com/coronavirus-updates/2020/09/sturgis-motorcycle-rally-is-now-linked-to-more-than-250000-coronavirus-cases/

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bill Jandro

Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, an annual event that packed nearly 500,000 people into a small town in South Dakota

Got a laugh out of this. Bikers are spread out over thousands of square miles in hundreds of towns and campgrounds throughtout the Black Hills. I'm not even sure why they refer to it as Sturgis.

quote:

ORIGINAL: David Levine

Well...that escalated quickly:

Sturgis Motorcycle Rally Is Now Linked to More Than 250,000 Coronavirus Cases

For indispensable reporting on the coronavirus crisis, the election, and more, subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily newsletter.
The inevitable fallout from last month’s Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, an annual event that packed nearly 500,000 people into a small town in South Dakota, is becoming clear, and the emerging picture is grim.

According to a new study, which tracked anonymized cellphone data from the rally, over 250,000 coronavirus cases have now been tied to the 10-day event, one of the largest to be held since the start of the pandemic. It drew motorcycle enthusiasts from around the country, many of whom were seen without face coverings inside crowded bars, restaurants, and other indoor establishments.

The explosion in cases, the study from the Germany-based IZA Institute of Labor Economics finds, is expected to reach $12 billion in public health costs.

“The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally represents a situation where many of the ‘worst-case scenarios’ for super-spreading occurred simultaneously,” the researchers wrote, “the event was prolonged, included individuals packed closely together, involved a large out-of-town population, and had low compliance with recommended infection countermeasures such as the use of masks.”

The conclusion, while staggering, is unlikely to surprise to public health officials who warned that proceeding with the rally could be disastrous, particularly given the region’s relaxed attitude towards social distancing guidelines and some of the attendees’ mockery of the pandemic. “Screw COVID. I went to Sturgis,” read one t-shirt from the rally, where overwhelming support for President Trump was the norm.

The study comes on the heels of the first reported death from the event, a Minnesota man in his 60’s who attended the rally who died last week. South Dakota now has one of the country’s highest rates of coronavirus cases.

https://www.motherjones.com/coronavirus-updates/2020/09/sturgis-motorcycle-rally-is-now-linked-to-more-than-250000-coronavirus-cases/

quote:

ORIGINAL: unome

quote:

ORIGINAL: David Levine

Well...that escalated quickly:

Sturgis Motorcycle Rally Is Now Linked to More Than 250,000 Coronavirus Cases

For indispensable reporting on the coronavirus crisis, the election, and more, subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily newsletter.
The inevitable fallout from last month’s Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, an annual event that packed nearly 500,000 people into a small town in South Dakota, is becoming clear, and the emerging picture is grim.

According to a new study, which tracked anonymized cellphone data from the rally, over 250,000 coronavirus cases have now been tied to the 10-day event, one of the largest to be held since the start of the pandemic. It drew motorcycle enthusiasts from around the country, many of whom were seen without face coverings inside crowded bars, restaurants, and other indoor establishments.

The explosion in cases, the study from the Germany-based IZA Institute of Labor Economics finds, is expected to reach $12 billion in public health costs.

“The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally represents a situation where many of the ‘worst-case scenarios’ for super-spreading occurred simultaneously,” the researchers wrote, “the event was prolonged, included individuals packed closely together, involved a large out-of-town population, and had low compliance with recommended infection countermeasures such as the use of masks.”

The conclusion, while staggering, is unlikely to surprise to public health officials who warned that proceeding with the rally could be disastrous, particularly given the region’s relaxed attitude towards social distancing guidelines and some of the attendees’ mockery of the pandemic. “Screw COVID. I went to Sturgis,” read one t-shirt from the rally, where overwhelming support for President Trump was the norm.

The study comes on the heels of the first reported death from the event, a Minnesota man in his 60’s who attended the rally who died last week. South Dakota now has one of the country’s highest rates of coronavirus cases.

https://www.motherjones.com/coronavirus-updates/2020/09/sturgis-motorcycle-rally-is-now-linked-to-more-than-250000-coronavirus-cases/

I hope when you read that number you at least questioned its validity, if only just a little.

I wasted a bunch of time reading that 30 page report. That is time I will never get back.

It was 28 pages of mostly nonsense talking a whole bunch about what happened in Meade County, which is a small county of 28,000.

After talking about that and touching ever so briefly, and how can that have been brief in a 30 page paper, they all of a sudden jump to the conclusion that almost 20% of the national COVID cases between August 2 and September 2 came from the Rally. If that somehow passes your sniff test, then read on.

This is simply crazy because why even if some one caught COVID on the first day of Sturgis, they would not likely test positive for a week or more. People leaving on the last day may have only tested for it by September 2.

But, these guys are 'scientists' so it must be true. Well, they took data from cell phones and tracked


I originally thought they would build a case for a huge number based on how many people likely caught it and then worked the numbers forward. 10,000 gave it to another 10,000 that game it to another. Etc.

But, no, they actually were trying to make the argument that 266,796 got COVID from the Rally or spread by people that went to the Rally by September 2.

Huh?

But digging in to the actual numbers the 266,796 supposedly comes from and we get to page 53. The "high inflow" counties showed a much higher rate of COVID than other counties. Aha! The smoking gun!!

However, it seems strange that counties with ANY inflow of people from Sturgis at all were all UNDER the counties that had no Sturgis attendees at all. Huh? How is that possible?

And, looking at page 53 closely, we see that the "high inflow" counties had far more COVID cases BEFORE the Rally and this rate actually leveled off during the Rally.

If anything, the Rally seemed to helped slow down the COVID growth of "high inflow" counties.

Now, we turn to page 37 and see where those "high inflow" counties are that got all this COVID from Sturgis (supposedly).

Some rural ones around Sturgis. OK, makes sense, but there is not much population there.

Of those "high inflow" counties are the counties that Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas, Phoenix, the Twin Cities, Sioux Falls, Sioux City, Kansas City and most of large cities in Colorado are in.

A whole bunch of urban counties that had high COVID cases relative to the population BEFORE the Rally (as seen on page 53).

So the entire number of 266,796 was predicated on the fact, and it is a fact, that these "high inflow" counties had a higher COVID rate than the national average from Aug. 2-Sept. 2.

And the huge number of 266,796 is based on the large population bases having more COVID than the national average by a statistically relevant number. Which they had both before, during and after the Rally.

Multiple these higher rates by big populations of Saan Diego, Phoenix, Las Vegas the Twin Cities, Kansas City and Denver and you get most of the
And the huge number of 266,796.

I can only reach two conclusions:

1) These authors knew that few would bother to read their report, which read as much like advocacy as science, so they purposefully manipulated the numbers for the press releases, which get passed on by a lazy media as "fact".

2) They are idiots that could not see the correlation of higher COVID cases in urban areas that all happened to be "high inflow" areas existed before the Rally and the rate of growth slowed during and after the Rally in those area.

I am guessing Option #1 is the answer. They are just massively disingenuous spin-artists posing as real scientists doing actual science.


Here is the paper in question:

http://ftp.iza.org/dp13670.pdf

Page 53 and 37. That is where the truth lies.

quote:

ORIGINAL: David Levine

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bill Jandro

Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, an annual event that packed nearly 500,000 people into a small town in South Dakota

Got a laugh out of this. Bikers are spread out over thousands of square miles in hundreds of towns and campgrounds throughtout the Black Hills. I'm not even sure why they refer to it as Sturgis.

Yeah, its funny stuff.

quote:

ORIGINAL: unome

quote:

ORIGINAL: David Levine

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bill Jandro

Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, an annual event that packed nearly 500,000 people into a small town in South Dakota

Got a laugh out of this. Bikers are spread out over thousands of square miles in hundreds of towns and campgrounds throughtout the Black Hills. I'm not even sure why they refer to it as Sturgis.

Yeah, its funny stuff.

Once you read the report and realize that a bunch of people were had and this is fake science, it becomes both funnier and scarier. The advocates, err, scientists, know almost no one will dig through the report and used everyone's laziness, or lack of free time, to take advantage of people.

I mean, you and Brad bought it hook, line, and sinker, along with many in the media.

And you can see why more and more people lose faith in the media. If they want to believe something is true, they just report it as fact and make sure to cover themselves by mentioning it came from a "scientific report".

But, I read it and that was not science.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mark Anderson


Is there anyway we can shut off our location devices on our phones?

If you do shut it off and then you power down, does it automatically turn on again?

Scary that private companies can get our cell phone records and use them for whatever they want.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mark Anderson

quote:

ORIGINAL: unome

quote:

ORIGINAL: David Levine

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bill Jandro

Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, an annual event that packed nearly 500,000 people into a small town in South Dakota

Got a laugh out of this. Bikers are spread out over thousands of square miles in hundreds of towns and campgrounds throughtout the Black Hills. I'm not even sure why they refer to it as Sturgis.

Yeah, its funny stuff.

Once you read the report and realize that a bunch of people were had and this is fake science, it becomes both funnier and scarier. The advocates, err, scientists, know almost no one will dig through the report and used everyone's laziness, or lack of free time, to take advantage of people.

I mean, you and Brad bought it hook, line, and sinker, along with many in the media.

And you can see why more and more people lose faith in the media. If they want to believe something is true, they just report it as fact and make sure to cover themselves by mentioning it came from a "scientific report".

But, I read it and that was not science.

The report made sure to tell us that these people were Trump supporters.

It was basically a political ad.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Brad H
They are now saying over $12-billion in health care costs associated with Sturgis. https://www.yahoo.com/news/sturgis-motorcycle-rally-spread-coronavirus-across-the-nation-leading-to-12-billion-in-healthcare-costa-182736696.html?ncid=twitter_yahoonewst_sjwumo1bpf4

Oops, didn't realize it was already included in your article.

quote:

ORIGINAL: SoMnFan

quote:

ORIGINAL: bohumm

quote:

ORIGINAL: Lynn G.

But you have to admit people also should stop whining that government workers have too many vacation days and are lazy - because probably 90% of the people online during working hours are NOT government workers.

Exactly. That's what prompted me to post. I've worked in the public school system, non-profit, healthcare, Fortune 500-type corporate, and media settings, and I can tell you that there is the same mixed bag of effort and focus and intensity throughout.

I'll be like those that do not work in government jobs.

IMO, anyone who works in the private sector is lazy and worthless.
And my wife and I, who have both worked in government jobs, are the hardest working sumbitches on the planet.
There.