“There was a significant amount of discussion that the council had with residents, businesses and state health officials, as well as local health officials,” Daniel Ainslie, the city manager, told CNN Sunday.
The city, home to less than 7,000, sent a survey to all households to ask if they wanted the rally to continue on its scheduled date. The massive event brings in mostly audiences of around 500,000 over 10 days of drag races, competitions and concerts. On its 75th anniversary, nearly three-quarters of a million people showed up.
A little over 60% of people in the city voted against holding the event this week. But the city council still approved it.
The decision, says Ainslie, was all about preparing the crowds.
“There are people all over America who have been locked up for months and months,” he said. “That we kept hearing from people saying it does not matter, they are coming to Sturgis. So with the decision, the council finally decided that it was really for the community to be prepared for the extra people we will end up having . “
“What’s important for people to understand is in a very small community and rural area in western South Dakota, you can not get tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people without preparations, including waste and sanitation and extra law enforcement and medical emergency personnel,” he said.
“That was really the thing that drove the council to decide that we need to be prepared for the number of people that came.”
The events that will be held in the city will be limited this year, city officials told CNN, and many that have attracted most audiences have been canceled.
In addition, the city canceled the ads for the day-long event and “tried to reduce the rally as much as possible,” Ainslie said.
“We tell people when they come here, to ride through the hills, because when you’m riding your motorcycle through the hills, you’re absolutely socially distant.”
‘Super Spreader Events Are Real’
The rally has always been a point of controversy among city residents, but this year there is an additional concern: a powerful virus that is still running unabated in many American communities.
Some experts are apprehensive about the event – and the afternoon meetings in restaurants and bars that do not have legally limited capacity limits – could lead to a spread of coronavirus not only in the South Dakota community, but in other parts from the country when tourists return home.
“Those superspreader events are real,” said Dr. Megan Ranney, an emergency physician at Lifespan Health System and associate professor at Brown University.
“We have reports from across the country of one person infecting 90 or 100 (people) or even more. And if you have some of those infections that start with Sturgis, people go back home and have it themselves. potentially around in their own communities. “
And that, she said, can happen without people knowing, because symptoms can last anywhere from several days to two weeks to see.
“This has the potential to literally put new hotspots across the country,” she said.
The positive thing, Ranney added, is that many events will take place outside. But not all.
“Those bars and those after-hours events are what make me and other public health officials pretty nervous.”
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