Sturgis Motorcycle Rally Stephen Groves/AP began on August 6th, 2021.
Governor of South Dakota Kristi Noem described the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, which lasted 10 days, as "a fantastic event."
The rally will conclude Sunday and is expected to draw 700,000.
Doctor Anthony Fauci, a health official, is concerned that the Sturgis rally could cause new cases to spike.
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Governor of South Dakota Kristi Noem was highly praised by the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, which attracted hundreds of thousand of people. She called it "a fantastic and exciting event", as the Delta version spreads throughout the state.
"I find it interesting that this side of this political party, Democrats, who embrace abortion on demand, are accusing me of embracing death when I'm just allowing people make their own choices and have personal responsibility over when and where they want to gather, and how they spend time outside enjoying their way of living," Noem stated Friday in an interview with Fox News' Laura Ingraham.
She said, "So we've had an amazing event here in South Dakota." They're having a great time. We are glad everyone made it to South Dakota.
The rally will end on Sunday after 10 days.
The highly transmissible Delta variant continues its spread throughout the US, with a spike in South Dakota cases reporting hundreds of cases every week in the past month.
According to Johns Hopkins University data, 49% of the state’s population are fully vaccinated against coronavirus.
This puts South Dakota at the same level with the United States. JHU data shows that 51% of Americans are fully vaccinated.
These bikers come from all parts of the country, but these are just a few of the hundreds of thousands. According to the Washington Post, 700,000. bikers will attend the rally this year.
Dr. Anthony Fauci is the country's foremost coronavirus expert and has expressed concern about the Sturgis rally in the past.
Continue the story
"It's understandable to me that people want the freedom to do what they want. They want their freedom to do this," Fauci stated on NBC's "Meet the Press." But there is a point when you have to deal with a public crisis that could affect you, your family, and everyone else.
More than 450,000 people visited South Dakota last year to take part in the biker festival. At least 649 of these cases were linked to the Sturgis rally. It is possible that the true number is much higher as it was difficult to track down contact information once bikers had returned to their states. A month later, research showed that hundreds of thousands of COVID-19 cases had been linked to the rally.
A spokesperson for Sturgis said that there is no mandate for masks this year. Participants will have access to free testing, hand sanitizer, and masks.
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