After Trump campaign tour, COVID-19 surges
1,500 more new cases in the 2 weeks after rallies
As President Donald Trump jetted across the country holding campaign rallies during the past two months, he didn’t just defy state orders and federal health guidelines. He left a trail of coronavirus outbreaks in his wake.
The president has participated in nearly three dozen rallies since mid-August, all but two at airport hangars. A USA TODAY analysis shows COVID-19 cases grew at a faster rate than before after at least five of those rallies in the following counties: Blue Earth, Minnesota; Lackawanna, Pennsylvania; Marathon, Wisconsin; Dauphin, Pennsylvania; and Beltrami, Minnesota.
Together, those counties saw 1,500 more new cases in the two weeks following Trump’s rallies than the two weeks before – 9,647 cases, up from 8,069.
Public health officials additionally have linked 16 cases, including two hospitalizations, with the rally in Beltrami County, Minnesota, and one case with the rally in Marathon County, Wisconsin. Outside of the counties identified by USA TODAY with a greater case increase after rallies, officials identified four cases linked to Trump rallies.
Although there’s no way to determine definitively if cases originated at Trump’s rallies, public health experts say the gatherings fly in the face of all recommendations to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
USA TODAY reviewed coronavirus case counts in the counties where Trump attended rallies starting from mid-August through mid-October. The news organization examined the rate of increase in virus cases for the two weeks before and after campaign events. For rallies occurring within the past two weeks, not enough time has passed to draw conclusions.
The earliest post-rally spikes occurred even as the nation’s overall case counts were in decline from a peak in mid-July. When U.S. cases started climbing in mid-September, Trump did not alter his campaign schedule but continued holding an average of four rallies a week.
He stopped first in Minnesota, where Blue Earth County’s coronavirus growth rate was 15% before Trump’s rally, but grew to 25% afterward. Three days later, he was in Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, where the coronavirus growth rate jumped from less than 3% before his visit to more than 7% afterward.
Even in states where cases were already rising, the spikes in at least four counties that hosted Trump rallies far surpassed their state’s overall growth rates.
In two counties, it was more than double: Marathon County’s case count surged by 67% after Trump’s visit compared to Wisconsin’s overall growth rate of 29% during the same time. In Beltrami County, Minnesota, it swelled by 35% compared to the state’s 14%.
Health experts say it’s impossible to pinpoint the rallies as the direct source of infection or community spread
“This is true of any respiratory virus; when you’re near people in close contact, you’re going to spread the virus. And rallies are particularly problematic.” Shelley Payne Director of the LaMontagne Center for Infectious Diseases at the University of Texas
without an intensive outbreak investigation. They also said that a variety of factors, including the reopening of public schools, could contribute to the rising case counts. For example, Marathon County is also near the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point campus, where the school reported 175 coronavirus cases five days after the rally.
But experts all agreed that holding large rallies during a pandemic interferes with efforts to contain the virus and can make things worse. This is why officials in at least five states, including two with Republican governors, voiced concerns or issued warnings in advance of the president’s rallies.
“I would ask the president, for once, to put the health of his constituents ahead of his own political fortunes,” Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, said on Sept. 25. Trump has held three rallies in the state since then.
Campaign events where people gather together cheering and screaming can carry the virus far through the crowd, said Shelley Payne, director of the LaMontagne Center for Infectious Diseases at the University of Texas. Then those infected will take the virus back to their families, friends and coworkers – fanning an outbreak in the community.
“This is true of any respiratory virus; when you’re near people in close contact, you’re going to spread the virus,” Payne said. “And rallies are particularly problematic.”
Campaign rallies fall within a category the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention labels “highest risk” for the potential to spread the virus that already has claimed the lives of more than 222,000 Americans.
Courtney Parella, deputy press secretary for the Trump campaign, defended the rallies and attacked other large gatherings organized to support women’s rights and the Black Lives Matter movement.
“Americans have the right to gather under the First Amendment to hear from the President of the United States, and we take strong precautions for our campaign events, requiring every attendee to have their temperature checked, be provided a mask they’re instructed to wear, and ensuring access to plenty of hand sanitizer,” Parella said in an email statement.
In addition to the rallies, Trump has hosted large events at the White House since August, including the Sept. 26 Rose Garden ceremony nominating Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.
That gathering, which drew more than 300 people, has since been labeled a superspreader after 14 guests, including the president, later tested positive for the coronavirus. In all, at least 34 cases have been linked to the White House since late September.
Political experts say the guideline-defying events are part of a strategy by the Trump administration to downplay the seriousness of the virus ahead of the election. It has divided the nation over wearing masks and taking the necessary precautions to contain the virus. “It’s a trade-off between doing what’s right for public health or what benefits re-election,” said Todd Belt, professor and director of the Political Management Program at The George Washington University. “And over and over, the greater concern for this White House is re-election.”
From conservative Christians with tucked shirts and dress shoes to bikers with long beards and leather, hundreds of Trump supporters waved flags, held signs and donned the red caps as they descended on the small town of Bemidji, located in Beltrami County, Minnesota.
Despite the 250-person limit for gatherings in the state, throngs stood shoulder-to-shoulder as they waited in long lines, cheering on the commander in chief and greeting others as if the global pandemic did not exist. A mix of locals and those who traveled hundreds of miles, the scene at the September rally has played out in small towns across America where Trump has a stronghold.
Between mid-August and mid-October, Trump has visited small and mid-sized communities in major swing states with county populations ranging from 47,000 to 310,000.
The rallies, now taking place almost daily, attract an average crowd of about 6,000 people. Some have attracted up to 20,000, according to local news reports. In all, more than 120,000 people have attended his campaign events in the past nine weeks.
Bill Batchelder, a small business owner and volunteer firefighter in Bemidji, supports Trump for the economy. Batchelder was seated behind the president, some 45 feet away, at the rally.
“I was not at all concerned at the Trump rally,” Batchelder said. “I take COVID-19 very seriously. The way I put it is my risk threshold is very low but my precautions are very high.”
The gatherings have irked local and state officials. Ahead of an Oct. 14 rally, Iowa’s top public health official, Lina Tucker Reinders, sent an email to the Des Moines Register saying they could be looking at “another super-spreader event.”
In North Carolina, Gov. Roy Cooper asked elected leaders and candidates “to lead by example on the campaign trail this fall by holding events with face coverings and social distancing to protect North Carolinians when visiting.
“It is all about modeling and messaging,” said Jay Wolfson, senior associate dean of the Morsani College of Medicine and associate vice president of University of Southern Florida health. “The public is deeply divided.”