The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally’s impact on the coronavirus, explained

The paper doesn’t rule out, for example, that the attendees may have been risk-takers who were disproportionately likely to get the virus elsewhere, said Andrew Noymer, an associate professor of population health and disease prevention at the University of California, Irvine. … But Noymer said the effect size still seems too large. “Let’s do a thought experiment,” Noymer added. “The thought experiment is, the Sturgis rally never happened. Would there be 20% fewer cases of COVID in the United States? I think the answer is no.”