[ExI] sturgis - washington post

Mon Oct 19 20:27:38 UTC 2020

No one will win any friends down here with the term 'yank', unless it's
'Yank the plug outta that damn keg, willya?'   bill w

On Mon, Oct 19, 2020 at 3:18 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> On Mon, Oct 19, 2020 at 2:51 AM spike jones via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>> > On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat
>> >
>>
>> >>... The number comes from the suspected number of people who caught at
>> the
>>
>> > rally.  If you take half million-randomly chosen yanks and compare to
>>
>> > the number traceable to the rally, it appears the rally catch rate was
>> about half the average.
>>
>> >...Apples and oranges, don't you think? Unless Sturgis rally attendees
>> are
>>
> > like a random sample of US-Americans (what you mean by 'yanks' and not,
>> say, New Englanders)...
>>
>>
>>
>> All USians are yanks.  I have heard that is a generally accepted term, so
>> I use it for us.
>>
>
> My parenthetical comment was to make sure that's what _you_ meant by the
> term.
>
>
>> >...then it's the wrong comparison. Do attendees randomly come from all
>> over the US?
>>
>> Hard to say.  I would think in general riders are more likely to attend if
>>
> they live closer, but I know there are a lot of clubs that love a good long
>>
> ride out to Sturgis.
>>
>
> I don't know either and my causal search online didn't find what I really
> wanted: something like where most Sturgis attendees came from and the
> routes they mainly took to get there.
>
>
>> I might be overlooking something really obvious here.  If people do ride
>> far,
>>
> it represents several days in which they have little or no contact with
>> others.
>>
>
> I would presume they have to stop to get food or find lodging or use the
> restroom and whatnot. But I don't know. And maybe some of them camp, bring
> all the food and drink they need, and don't mind relieving themselves
> outside. I don't know the numbers here. My guess would be that during the
> travel, they'd have little contact. And this would be better than, say, if
> they carpooled or, worse, all took big touring buses -- where if one person
> had it, they might quickly spread it to others in the car or on the bus.
>
>> It might be that alone that can explain it: they are more likely to
>> arrive at
>>
> Sturgis without having caught in the previous few days, when they were
>>
> on the road.  Creating a statistical model for that is very difficult, but
>> it is
>>
> a compelling argument, possibly more so than my notion that sunshine
>>
> on bare skin raised vitamin D levels, offering a bit of extra protection
>>
> (that notion under-accounts for the difference.)
>>
>
> Again, we'd have to have a good idea of what the percentages are here.
>
>
>> My own club went to Sturgis a little later (by three weeks (they are the
>>
> older crowd (even compared to the geriatric Sturgis main event crowd
>>
> (so they prefer to not camp on the ground (so they go after the main
>>
> event (the few hotels around Sturgis are available then (and I can
>>
> cheerfully report that no one caught and no one crashed (I really worry
>>
> about this crowd (several are over 80 now.)))))))
>>
>
> That's good to hear. Of course, the modeling that seems correct here --
> given all the uncertainties -- did point to something like a few hundred
> people getting infected, so maybe it's not just a good outcome but a very
> likely one.
>
>
>> No matter how we try to analyze this, there are unknowns and speculation,
>>
> but if one goes to about 2 wks after the rally (late August) I see only one
>>
> state which one can recognize a surge, and that is in South Dakota where
>>
> the rally was held.  Irony: the actual ground zero, the town of Sturgis,
>> didn't
>>
> have a surge.
>>
>
> I agree about the unknowns here... But this plays both ways. One can't
> really be sure what happened, but then it also means one shouldn't use the
> event as a basis to prove much.
>
>
>> On the other hand... several of those Midwest states are having huge
>> surges
>>
> now, which cannot be reasonably traced to the Sturgis rally: it ended over
>> 2 months ago.
>>
>
> Well, the WaPo article is saying this all started in late August, so that
> does fit the 'Sturgis rally play a role' explanation. And I'd expect it to
> follow from there: rally attendees traveling through or returning to those
> places spread it to more people and it simply takes time for this to play
> out. So, they're not saying, in the article, that Sturgis happened and
> there was absolutely no new cases until October. (Of course, other things
> happened between Sturgis and now, but that doesn't necessarily rule out
> Sturgis being a contributor here.)
>
>
>> An example is Idaho, which had a decline in the weeks following the
>> rally.  The surge starting in mid September would have given enough time
>> for healthy returners from Sturgis to catch back in their own home state
>> after the rally.  This too must be offered as a possibility: bike clubs had
>> post-rally parties with their stay-home friends and caught there?
>>
>
> I should know more about Idaho, but things to look for would be how Idaho
> is different from surrounding states, especially with regard to COVID
> restrictions. If my memory serves, they were pretty strict with
> restrictions compared to other 'red' states.
>
>
>> I am completely at a loss to explain the huge surge a full two months
>> after the end of the rally.  I suppose we must look at school openings
>> there as the most likely explanation, but if so, why didn’t the bikers see
>> something similar?  I am watching for my own confirmation bias: I fully
>> expected a catastrophic surge after the rally, and urged my own club to not
>> go at all this year.  On the other hand, although it didn’t turn out as I
>> expected, that was one prediction I am most pleased to have flubbed.  I
>> have never been more pleased to be proven wrong than the non-super-spreader
>> that was Sturgis 2020 (from what I can tell, it wasn’t even a
>> normal-spreader (but I still cannot explain why.))
>>
>
> Well, Idaho lifted some restrictions in the beginning of September. There
> was a push to do so in late August. I wonder if the smoke emergency delayed
> or affected this too. Having gone through that in my area -- and my reading
> was it was worse in Spokane and so likely in Idaho as well -- it was being
> in lockdown for about two weeks. I mean no opening windows, only going
> outside -- with a real breathing mask for me not those dinky N95s :) -- for
> groceries, almost no contact with anyone else during this time. That could
> have a big impact. But this is just me guessing.
>
> spike
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
> Regards,
>
> Dan
>   Sample my Kindle books via:
> http://author.to/DanUst
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