OT: The Sturgis Rally and COVID

You should read an article or two about how they arrived at 250k infections, traced to this (rather long) event, before you say things. Or not, I guess it doesn't really matter nowadays. Just say whatever, someone will believe you. 

Protests might have resulted in local outbreaks (none as severe as this, that I am aware of), but somewhat counterintuitively, the NBER found that protests increased net stay-at-home behavior overall (though this is from June so we're a little past then of course). As others have stated, protestors were also more likely to be wearing masks.

Event-study analyses [on protests in 315 of the largest U.S. cities] provide strong evidence that net stay-at-home behavior increased following protest onset, consistent with the hypothesis that non-protesters’ behavior was substantially affected by urban protests. This effect was not fully explained by the imposition of city curfews. Estimated effects were generally larger for persistent protests and those accompanied by media reports of violence. Furthermore, we find no evidence that urban protests reignited COVID-19 case or death growth after more than five weeks following the onset of protests

It's called contact tracing. As of now, there has been few cases linked the protests across the country, likely because the vast majority of protesters are wearing masks, compared to Sturgis where the target demographic was blatantly anti mask

Watch the rallies; most people are wearing masks. Watch footage of Sturgis. 

I believe the city residents voted not to hold it but a combination of inertia and the governor telling them to pound sand led to it happening.

This has already been quantified, several times. If you really want to get informed on the topic, get off this site and get thee to the Google machine. 

A simple google search will return you quite a few articles showing that social justice protests and marches had little to no correlation to spreading the virus.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/black-lives-matter-protests-haven-t-led-covid-19-spikes-n1232045

https://time.com/5861633/protests-coronavirus/

https://www.wsj.com/articles/recent-protests-may-not-be-covid-19-transmission-hotspots-11592498020

The reason you haven't heard much about it is that the protests don't appear to have driven infections much at all (or we'd have seen noticeable increases in June in places like the Twin Cities, NYC, Chicago, Portland, etc, that simply did not materialize). Preponderance of the evidence is that if people are outdoors and masked, there simply isn't much transmission. 

Sturgis on the other hand was a bunch of people not wearing masks and plenty of them were crowding into bars. We know indoor transmission is FAR more likely than outdoor, and crowded spaces where people are yelling over the music and other people is gonna be the worse, since yelling or singing spreads the virus more efficiently (projects the droplets farther) than merely talking at a normal volume. Same reason why numerous outbreaks have been tied to churches holding indoor services - unmasked people singing indoors. 

I'll be curious to see what kind of data we eventually get on masked people distancing in an arena and in the outdoor stadiums (i.e. limited capacity crowds, masking requirements to attend). If people are masked and distancing I think it's possible that there won't be much spread especially in the outdoor stadiums, but I understand cities and states that aren't willing to even take the chance, policing masking in a sizeable crowd can't be easy and some assholes will flip out about the rules. 

As others have said, there is actually a lot of info on this. Just one example:

https://abcnews.go.com/US/minnesota-sees-rise-covid-19-cases-tied-protests/story?id=71393938

Infectious disease experts have warned that mass protests over the death of George Floyd could lead to another wave of COVID-19 infections. So far, Minneapolis, where the protest activity originated, has not seen a dramatic uptick in cases related to the demonstrations, the state's Department of Health told ABC News Monday.

As of late last week, 4,487 tests conducted across four testing sites specifically for protesters resulted in 62 positive cases of COVID-19, for a positivity rate of 1.4%, the department said.

And look at where cases and case positivity has been dropping: New York, DC, Portland, etc. Has there been any lack of protests in those areas? New York just reached its 30th straight day with an infection rate below 1% (and they are doing a ton of testing).

https://www.axios.com/new-york-covid-infection-rate-below-1-percent-f3b115ea-1a2f-48ca-99c8-12b9898c533c.html

https://www.amny.com/coronavirus/new-york-achieves-lowest-one-day-covid-19-infection-rate-in-nearly-six-months/

Also, just logic shows the key differences.
Protests:
- Heavily masked, with some social distancing
- Almost exclusively outside
- Made up of people typically local to the area

Sturgis:
- Hardly any masks and little regard for social distancing
- Plenty of high-volume activity in enclosed bars & clubs
- People came from hundreds of miles, so if they got sick, they spread it widely

Please DON'T equivocate. 

You already know the answer to this.  As long as you are gathering for one of two reasons you are immune to the virus:  Marxist protests is the obvious one.  The second is any gathering socially approved by the leftist media.  Sturgis obviously fits neither.

Remember comrades:  wear your mask, hang your picture of Stalin or Mao above the mantle, and this too shall pass.

I was skeptical of the idea that Sturgis would result in a huge surge.

I haven't read the whole paper and I don't plan to read it. (Not enough time ...)

I'm open to what you've presented here. A couple of references (for example, for the 300 confirmed cases) would be helpful.