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Study claims Sturgis motorcycle rally led to 260,000 coronavirus cases, not all agree with study’s data

A new study claims the Sturgis motorcycle rally held in South Dakota last month has led to 260,000 cases of coronavirus since the rally, multiple media outlets are reporting.

The study was done by the Center for Health Economics and Policy Studies at San Diego State University by using cellphone data.

You can read the report here.

But not all are agreeing with the research.

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem said the study was fiction, adding the research was not peer-reviewed, the Sioux Falls Argus Leader reported.

“Under the guise of academic research, this report is nothing short of an attack on those who exercised their personal freedom to attend Sturgis,” Noem said in a statement, according to the Argus Leader. “Predictably, some in the media breathlessly report on this non-peer reviewed model, but on incredibly faulty assumptions that do not reflect the actual facts and data here in South Dakota.”

State health officials said there were only 124 cases of South Dakotans who were sick after Sturgis, the newspaper reported. The Associated Press counted 290 positive cases in 12 states connected to the event. Both are well below the 260,000 cases claimed by the study.

South Dakota epidemiologist Josh Clayton and Secretary of Health Kim Malsam-Rysdon also said the study didn’t take into account the case numbers that had been climbing in the state before the rally, possibility attributing it to the reopening of schools, The Washington Post reported.

Clayton Malsam-Rysdon also questioned using cellphone data to correspond with case counts, the Post reported.

“What I have to say at this point is the results do not align with what we know for the impacts of the reality among attendees in the state of South Dakota,” Clayton said, according to the post.

The study was looking to see the effects of events that could be considered super-spreaders. The Center for Health Economics and Policy Studies has also looked at Black Lives Matter rallies and President Donald Trump’s Tulsa, Oklahoma, political rally held in June, according to the newspaper.

About 460,000 people attended the 10-day motorcycle rally, The Washington Post reported.