Donald Trump waves to supporters of the presidential limousine as they leave a campaign rally
Stanford University economists estimate that President Donald Trump’s campaign rallies resulted in 30,000 more confirmed cases of COVID-19 and likely resulted in more than 700 deaths in total, according to an article published online this weekend.
The research, led by Stanford University Chair in Economics B Douglas Bernheim, analyzed data following 18 Trump rallies held between June 20 and September 22, including three indoors . Bernheim said in an email that the work relied on statistical methods to infer causation after an event occurred.
Infectious disease experts have long suspected that the president’s rallies ahead of the Nov. 3 election could be so-called mass-market events. But so far scientists haven’t been able to get a good read on their impact, in part because of a lack of solid contact tracing in many states.
What is the concern?
In recent months, Trump has held dozens of rallies in states such as Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Wisconsin, where rates of coronavirus infection were already on the rise.
At each event, it is estimated that several thousand people attended. While most rallies were held outdoors, video footage shows attendees gathered nearby and many were not wearing masks, creating a risk of the virus spreading by applauding their candidate.
“It’s not a big stretch” to say that large unmasked gatherings are likely to spread the virus, said Dr Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease expert at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
Adalja said the Stanford document was “suggesting” a dissemination of the events, but not definitive because it was not based on an investigation of actual cases. This would help confirm whether attendees were exposed to the virus at the event, rather than at other places where transmission is endemic.
What do we know?
Minnesota public health officials attributed four outbreaks of COVID-19 and more than 25 cases to Trump rallies held around the state in September and October.
Eleven other state health departments contacted by Reuters said they had not been able to trace the infections to the rallies, although some, including Michigan and Wisconsin, have determined that people who subsequently tested positive for COVID-19 were present at the Trump campaign events.
What data is needed?
Disease experts say rigorous contact tracing from such an important event could help accurately predict how infected these gatherings are.
But the United States has fallen behind other developed countries in this regard, due to a lack of funding and coordination for contact tracing by the Trump administration.
“The problem is, we haven’t done anything to get real numbers,” said Dr. Eric Topol, genomics expert and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in La Jolla, California. Instead, it is subjected to guesswork and mathematical models.
For example, scientists can use gene sequencing to trace minute changes in the genetic code of the virus as it passes from person to person, allowing them to develop a map of how the virus is moving. This work has been used outside the United States, including Australia and Hong Kong, to track COVID-19 outbreaks.
“If we even had a rally where there was definitive tracing, then you could extrapolate. But we didn’t have any. Our country has acted as if contact tracing doesn’t exist,” Topol said.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
