
Sturgis Motorcycle Rally was 'superspreading event,' cost public health $12.2B - onetimemanytime
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/515453-sturgis-motorcycle-rally-was-superspreading-event-that-cost-public
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klyrs
The study was posted and discussed earlier today

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24410471](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24410471)

[http://ftp.iza.org/dp13670.pdf](http://ftp.iza.org/dp13670.pdf)

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phsource
As much as I do feel COVID is a real threat and that the Sturgis Motorcycle
Rally probably helped spread it somewhat, this paper (and even more so, the
article) far overstates the case.

Copying over some key points from the underlying paper [1]:

> In counties with the largest relative inflow to the event, the per 1,000
> case rate increased by 10.7 percent after 24 days following the onset of
> Sturgis Pre-Rally Events. Multiplying the percent case increases for the
> high, moderate-high and moderate inflow counties by each county’s respective
> pre-rally cumulative COVID-19 cases and aggregating, yields a total of
> 263,708 additional cases in these locations due to the Sturgis Motorcycle
> Rally. Adding the number of new cases due to the Rally in South Dakota
> estimated by synthetic control (3.6 per 1,000 population, scaled by the
> South Dakota population of approximately 858,000) brings the total number of
> cases to 266,796 or 19 percent of 1.4 million new cases.

> If we conservatively assume that all of these cases were non-fatal, then
> these cases represent a cost of over $12.2 billion, based on the statistical
> cost of a COVID-19 case of $46,000 estimated by Kniesner and Sullivan
> (2020).

The Kniesner and Sullivan paper cited [2] gets to the value of $46,000 by
using the Department of Transportation's "value per statistical life" of about
$10 million per death (scaled down to ~$11k per asymptomatic case), which is
not a public health cost estimate. It's probably far higher than what
hospitals and the health system spends per case.

Not only that, but the paper claims, without any controls, that ALL case count
increases in counties that sent lots of people to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally
in the weeks following it were caused by the Rally itself. They did not
control for any other factors (e.g., the baseline spread of COVID in adjacent
counties with lower attendance.) This is unplausible, given that other factors
and events (e.g., college parties, indoors dining) may have also contributed.

[1] [http://ftp.iza.org/dp13670.pdf](http://ftp.iza.org/dp13670.pdf)

[2]
[https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3680348](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3680348)

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nradov
The rally was a bad idea but this is junk science. The public health cost
estimate is based on the assumption that _asymptomatic_ cases somehow cost
$11,000 each. That is obviously nonsense.

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chishaku
The authors spend 15 pages or so describing the calculations, its limitations,
and alternative calculations.

Focusing on one parameter to throw out the whole paper would be junk science.

[http://ftp.iza.org/dp13670.pdf](http://ftp.iza.org/dp13670.pdf)

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
I didn't see where the $11,000 estimate for asymptomatic cases came from (can
anyone point to exactly where that's from?)

However, if it is the case that the authors _did_ use that estimate for a per-
asymptomatic case cost, then I think it's perfectly valid to throw out the
rest of the paper as nonsense. I mean, the only reason anyone is talking about
this paper at all is because the top-line number is so outrageously high. If a
fundamental calculation going into that number is that patently ridiculous, I
don't care if you have 15 pages or 1500 pages, adding more pages of numbers
can't get around the absurdity of the underlying primary assumption.

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
Replying to my own comment, I found the paper where they got the 11k from,
it's page 7 on this link:
[http://ftp.iza.org/dp13632.pdf](http://ftp.iza.org/dp13632.pdf).

This analysis is complete, utter, and total bullshit. They took a "value per
statistical life" number of $11 million, then pulled a semi random 0.3% out of
their ass to account for an $11k cost per asymptomatic case. At no point did
they actually attempt to account anywhere for the true cost of treating (or,
in this case not treating) an asymptomatic case.

These numbers are complete garbage.

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2bluesc
> That dollar amount is based on another estimation that an average of $46,000
> is spent on each patient who tests positive for COVID-19.

Anyone have an idea on where that dollar amount came from? If many infections
are asymptomatic then surely that number could only be associated with people
who exhibit complications.

Something doesn't seem to add up.

~~~
lstamour
The "discussion paper" cites
[https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3680348](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3680348)
which in turn uses the vague "VSL" cited as DOT's $11 million per life.

> Using standard assumptions provided by the CDC, we estimate that as of July
> 27, 2020, the actual number of cumulative Covid-19 cases in the U.S. is
> about 47 million with almost 1 million involving hospitalizations. Applying
> value per statistical life (VSL) and relative severity/injury estimates from
> the Department of Transportation (DOT), we estimate an overall non-fatal
> unadjusted valuation of $2.2 trillion for the U.S. with a weighted average
> value of about $46,000 per case.

Note that they're not saying the health care or direct costs are $46,000 but
instead that it is a statistically useful value -- and it only applies to non-
fatal cases of COVID-19, so it actually excludes the "worst case" outcome. As
a result, it's an alarming number, but it's meant to illustrate how much the
government might consider reasonable to spend to prevent folks from getting
COVID-19 -- its impact to the economy, and it has to be balanced against the
significant economic impact that other COVID mitigations have already had,
particularly for those who have not been at risk of getting or spreading
COVID-19 but still are economically disadvantaged by the mitigations.

It's kind of a brutal way of thinking about it. How much is one life worth, in
dollars, for regulation and decision-making purposes? I haven't read it, but
[https://muse.jhu.edu/book/64735](https://muse.jhu.edu/book/64735) came up in
Google searches and looks moderately interesting and relevant here.

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swader999
Strange how none of the protests have any similar publicized effect like this
event.

~~~
wtallis
It doesn't seem strange at all. None of the protests have had anything close
to the sheer size of the rally, nor have they been attracting participants
from such a broad area. Most of the protests have been very localized in size
and scope, so while they may help spread the coronavirus within a community,
they have much less potential for spreading coronavirus _between_ communities.

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bananabreakfast
Don't forget the vast majority of attendees at the rally ignored all safety
precautions, unlike most other large gatherings.

~~~
RickJWagner
Have you got some source to cite, please?

It's not the impression I have. I saw photos of large crowds, chanting and
singing, etc. at the protests.

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lumberingjack
I was there group of people 200 strong none of them got sick all still in
contact after we got back how is it that their statistics like that when I
know of 200 people that never got sick? No one no one wore masks fuck masks.
It's a fake virus you retards it kills 003% that's so low I'm not even worried
about vaccines let the people who are going to die from it die

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yehosef
When will it all end...

