Covid-19 and Trump's Campaign Rallies

An academic paper concludes that 18 Trump campaign rallies
(where most people ignored social distancing or did not wear masks)
likely led to more than 700 deaths by Covid-19.

https://sebotero.github.io/papers/COVIDrallies_10_30_2000.pdf

"The Effects of Large Group Meetings on the Spread of COVID-19: The Case of Trump Rallies"

"We investigate the effects of large group meetings on the spread of
COVID-19 by studying the impact of eighteen Trump campaign rallies.
To capture the effects of subsequent contagion within the pertinent
communities, our analysis encompasses up to ten post-rally weeks for each event.
Our method is based on a collection of regression models, one for
each event, that capture the relationships between post-event outcomes
and pre-event characteristics, including demographics and the
trajectory of COVID-19 cases, in similar counties. We explore a total
of 24 procedures for identifying sets of matched counties.
For the vast majority of these variants, our estimate of the average
treatment effect across the eighteen events implies that they increased
subsequent confirmed cases of COVID-19 by more than 250 per
100,000 residents.Extrapolating this figure to the entire sample, we
conclude that these eighteen rallies ultimately resulted in more
than 30,000 incremental confirmed cases of COVID-19.
Applying county-specific post-event death rates, we conclude that the rallies
likely led to more than 700 deaths (not necessarily among the attendees)."

"Our analysis strongly supports the warnings and recommendations of public
health officials concerning the risk of COVID-19 transmission at large group
gatherings, particularly when the degree of compliance with guidelines
concerning the use of masks and social distancing is low. The communities in
which Trump rallies took place paid a high price in terms of disease and death."

@duchess64 said
An academic paper concludes that 18 Trump campaign rallies
(where most people ignored social distancing or did not wear masks)
likely led to more than 700 deaths by Covid-19.

https://sebotero.github.io/papers/COVIDrallies_10_30_2000.pdf

"The Effects of Large Group Meetings on the Spread of COVID-19: The Case of Trump Rallies"

"We investigate the effects of larg ...[text shortened]... he communities in
which Trump rallies took place paid a high price in terms of disease and death."

An academic paper concludes that 18 Trump campaign rallies (where most people ignored social distancing or did not wear masks) likely led to more than 700 deaths by Covid-19.

I'm sure this is true, in fact the death toll may be higher than that before we know the full effect of his rally's. I don't know why Trump supporters can't get it through their heads this virus doesn't care which candidate one supports - it's an equal opportunity killer. Maybe they really are "that" dumb!

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/11/trump-voters-pandemic-failures/617051/

"How Trump Sold Failure to 70 Million People
The president convinced many voters that his response to the pandemic was not a disaster.
The psychology of medical fraud is simple, timeless, and tragic."

"The U.S. has suffered the most documented coronavirus deaths in the world, by far.
The Trump administration has continued to downplay and ignore the virus as its
spread has accelerated in almost every region of the country. On Wednesday, the
U.S. shattered the world record for daily coronavirus cases by topping 100,000 for
the first time—only to break the record again each subsequent day until a Saturday
high of 128,000. Field hospitals and makeshift morgues are appearing around the country."

"The president has variously lied by his own admission, denied the severity of the disease,
and promised false cures, all as the death toll shot into the hundreds of thousands."

"Trump’s vacuous promises about the virus were more than self-serving, disingenuous,
and deadly; they were also convincing and appealing to many people."

"Like any competent quack, Trump focuses on a winning vibe, not a factual case.
He positions himself as an alternative to “the scientists” and “the doctors” such
that followers have to choose between trusting them or him."

"The freedom from scrutiny Trump now enjoys from many of his followers is
reflected in an ignorance even of where he stands on the pandemic.
In the survey of 4,000 Americans, 81 percent of Trump voters who believed that
masks should be required also believed that Trump agrees. He has not supported
a mask mandate, and has barely even endorsed their voluntary use."

@mchill said
An academic paper concludes that 18 Trump campaign rallies (where most people ignored social distancing or did not wear masks) likely led to more than 700 deaths by Covid-19.

I'm sure this is true, in fact the death toll may be higher than that before we know the full effect of his rally's. I don't know why Trump supporters can't get it through their heads this virus doesn' ...[text shortened]... which candidate one supports - it's an equal opportunity killer. Maybe they really are "that" dumb!

I know a retired American lawyer, who's not a Republican.
He still says that President Trump has handled the pandemic 'almost perfectly'.
He said that he has much more confidence in what Donald Trump says than
in what any doctors or scientists could say about Covid-19.

@duchess64 said
An academic paper concludes that 18 Trump campaign rallies
(where most people ignored social distancing or did not wear masks)
likely led to more than 700 deaths by Covid-19.

https://sebotero.github.io/papers/COVIDrallies_10_30_2000.pdf

"The Effects of Large Group Meetings on the Spread of COVID-19: The Case of Trump Rallies"

"We investigate the effects of larg ...[text shortened]... he communities in
which Trump rallies took place paid a high price in terms of disease and death."

Has that paper been through peer review or is it a preprint?

62.000 Americans in hospital due to Corona.
More than 900 deaths a day average.

trump is surely correct when he says he’s beaten the virus... and there’s nothing to worry about...

@deepthought said
Has that paper been through peer review or is it a preprint?

It's dated 30 October 2020, so I suspect that it's a preprint.

@duchess64 said
I know a retired American lawyer, who's not a Republican.
He still says that President Trump has handled the pandemic 'almost perfectly'.
He said that he has much more confidence in what Donald Trump says than
in what any doctors or scientists could say about Covid-19.

"Ideology over science" is extremely popular in America. Con men like Trump have taken advantage of this for years.

@duchess64 said
It's dated 30 October 2020, so I suspect that it's a preprint.

A note of caution about that paper. If you look at Figure 1 on page 10 they show the central value for the "treatment effects" for the counties where there were rallies and the "placebo" counties, i.e. ones that did not have rallies. The 95% confidence intervals appear to overlap, although it's difficult to tell because of the way the data is presented.

The measure is the number of new cases, except for the placebo groups they have a negative figure and haven't adequately explained how the number of new cases per 100,000 can come out negative, even as an average. I need to reread it to get a clearer handle on what they've done.

In table 2 they present standard deviations rather than 95% confidence intervals so it's hard to check that they don't overlap. Normally, i.e. in drug trial results, this would be presented as a ratio and a confidence interval presented for the ratio. Instead they've worked out central figures and confidence intervals for the treatment groups and placebo groups separately. Note that the footnote on the Title page says "Department of Economics" so they're not used to presenting medical data - only an economist could think that the number of new cases could come out negative.

I'd take their results as sufficient evidence that large events ought not to take place. The effect is large and we don't need statistical significance at the 95% confidence level for safety purposes. Large gatherings may increase covid-19 deaths is enough not to gather in large numbers. On the other hand if they are trying to prove that the Trump rallies increased Covid deaths then they haven't proved it because we can't be 95% certain their results did not come about by chance.