More than 700,000 people are flooding the South Dakota badlands this week for what will surely be the COVID-19 superspreader event of the year, the 81st annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.
We can hope the majority of attendees are vaccinated. But last year’s rally took place in blatant defiance of recommended health and safety protocols, resulting in hundreds (and likely thousands) of infections nationwide. “Screw Covid. I went to Sturgis,” read T-shirts sold at the event. With the delta variant already raging, the consequences of this year’s event could be horrific.
The antics of the willfully unvaxxed are a growing source of frustration for both vaccinated Americans and policymakers, including even some Republicans. “[I]t’s time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks,” Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said recently. “It’s the unvaccinated folks that are letting us down.” While the number of COVID-19 infections has surged past 120,000 a day, the overwhelming majority of hospitalizations and virtually all of the deaths have been among the unvaccinated.
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