How soon MAGA s forget about trump, the superspreader. So let me remind you - Trump’s gatherings led to more than 30,000 confirmed new COVID-19 infections and at least 700 deaths.
Donald Trump’s Superspreader Events Have Killed Hundreds and Infected Tens of Thousands, New Study Shows.
As the coronavirus continues its unchecked rampage through the American population, concerns have been brewing that President Donald Trump’s rallies have acted as incubators for COVID-19, largely due to people, including Trump, refusing to wear masks or respect social distancing guidelines.
The data is now in. Trump’s superspreader events, as they have been colloquially nicknamed, have led to hundreds of deaths and tens of thousands of COVID-19 infections, according to a new paper published by Standford University on Friday.
The researchers looked for connections between 18 Trump rallies held between June 20 and September 22 (three of which were indoors) and new coronavirus infections following those dates in surrounding areas:
Trump rallies have several distinguishing features that lend themselves to this inquiry.
First, they involved large numbers of attendees. Though data on attendance is poor, it appears that the number of attendees was generally in the thousands and sometimes in the tens of thousands. Because the available information about the incidence of COVID-19 is at the county level, the effects of smaller meetings would be more difficult to detect using our methods.
Second, the set of major Trump campaign events is easily identified. We know whether and when the Trump campaign held a rally in each county. This property allows us to distinguish between ‘treated’ and ‘untreated’ counties.
Third, the events occurred on identifiable days. They neither recurred within a given county nor stretched across several days. This feature allows us to evaluate the effects of individual gatherings.
Fourth, rallies were not geographically ubiquitous. As a result, we always have a rich set of untreated counties we can use as comparators.
Fifth, at least through September 2020, the degree of compliance with guidelines concerning the use of masks and social distancing was low, in part because the Trump campaign downplayed the risk of infection. This feature heightens the risk that a rally could become a ‘superspreader event.’
That data was used “to capture the relationships between post-event outcomes and pre-event characteristics, including demographics and the trajectory of COVID-19 cases, in similar counties,” the researches said in their paper. What they found is quite tragic, although somewhat unsurprising.
All told, Trump’s gatherings led to more than 30,000 confirmed new COVID-19 infections and at least 700 deaths directly attributed to the virus. Some of those who died were not even in attendance, meaning they were infected by someone who brought the bug home with them.
https://hillreporter.com/donald-trum...erts-say-84045