The Sturgis City Council has approved a deal with Monument Health to test up to 1,300 Sturgis residents for coronavirus after the big motorcycle rally in August:
City Manager Daniel Ainslie presented the initiative during the city council meeting on Monday evening. The council approved it unanimously.
…The report notes the city would spend $195,000 for the tests, $150 each, and eventually require a supplemental appropriation from the city’s general fund. However, the city may be eligible for reimbursement through the CARES Act funding.
Ainslie said the city has been allocated $1.54 million through the CARES Act.
He said if enough money isn’t available, then the cost for testing will come from the city’s reserve funds.
According to the report, 150 city employees are mandated to be tested, 400 tests would go to front-line residents (those who work in bars/restaurants, gas stations, grocery stores, hotels, etc.), 200 to employees of other entities who request testing, and 550 general tests for residents [Siandhara Bonnet, “Sturgis City Council Approves Mass Testing Following Annual Motorcycle Rally in August,” Rapid City Journal, 2020.07.06].
Folks like Governor Kristi Noem who think one test the day after close contact with a spreader is enough to clear her for jetsetting should check when the experts tell Sturgis they should do their coronavirus tests:
Monument Health would be able to conduct up to 1,300 tests to identify asymptomatic patients. The report notes that testing would occur following the average incubation period after the event.
According to the CDC, the incubation period for COVID-19 is thought to be 14 days with a median time of 4-5 days [Bonnet, 2020.07.06].
Sturgis has decided to respect the freedom of the thousands of motorcyclists who still want to travel across country and mingle in large crowds in the Black Hills in August. But that respect comes at the cost of the freedom of hundreds of Sturgis residents who must man their posts at the police station, the hospital, the gas stations, Lynn’s Dakotamart, and elsewhere around town and subject themselves to the far greater risk of coronavirus and invasive medical testing than they would experience if folks just showed some good sense and stayed home.
Why doesn’t the Buffalo Chip pay the costs of this as they seem to be the driving force? While Sturgis is making plans, they really need to make some future plans on Personal Protection Equipment. We have lost the ability to make anything here so now we are dependent on others to fulfill our needs…and that is failing once again,
“Personal protective gear that was in dangerously short supply during the early weeks of the coronavirus crisis in the US is running low again as the virus resumes its rapid spread and the number of hospitalized patients climbs.
A national nursing union is concerned that PPE will have to be reused. A doctors association warns that physicians’ offices are closed because they cannot get masks and other supplies. Members of Congress are pushing the Trump administration to devise a national strategy to acquire and distribute gear in anticipation of the crisis worsening into the fall.
“We’re five months into this and there are still shortages of gowns, hair covers, shoe covers, masks, N95 masks,” said Deborah Burger, president of National Nurses United, who cited results from a survey of the union’s members. “They’re being doled out and we’re still being told to reuse them.” Aljazeera 7.7.2020
The price of $150 per test seems high. Yesterday in Spearfish I saw a big sign outside the Urgentcare clinic offering COVID 19 tests at $75 apiece, only 1/2 the cost. What’s up with that?
It’s the Rally, Mr. bat. Beers cost $10. I know you know this.
drumpf campaign says they will flood Jacksonville area with FREE covid tests before the convention.
any one who wants a test can get a test coming from an individual who may just get beat in November..Will anybody be held liable at the rally if this becomes a hot spot.
The Grand Poobah of the Rally is ultimately responsible for all goings on at the Rally. There is an Office of Complaints where all who line up orderly and quietly are heard and have their problems, even health problems, fixed. It is at 1543 Lazelle St.
drumpf body count has exceeded 134k but the official count nearly 2 hours ago was 133,972. Next update on Wednesday morning.
Sturgis has a big sign up, with a ton of numbers on it about the covid bugs and the dead pigs and the criminal acts. The names of bikers who register on the web blog place the City of Sturgis has set up will be drawn out each day and those fellows, or perhaps scantily clad ladies, will get to change the numbers on the sign in front of a cheering crowd. This is all on the internets, except in Iowa, and Minnesota, from whence most of these out-of-state bikers come. It will be spectacular.
Bloviating Bigot doesn’t have a national strategy for anything except cheating us ordinary citizens out of our tax $ and into his baggy pockets.
Really, COVID-19 has been a known thing in the WH since last December or longer, and he’s still wallowing around in his massive incompetence.
I think the Lincoln Project ads are getting to him. They’re designed to play on his mental issues. I know– there’s so much to work with! The latest one hits his paranoid panic right on the button. Ole Basket Case is going to become even less coherent and more twitchy by the day.
Bwahahahahaha!!!
Sturgis, you’ve been had. They can test all they want, but they won’t be able to read the results due to lack of testing reagents. Demand better, your lives depend on it. We have 1.25 BILLION dollars for this kind of stuff and yet we lack. Why do you think that is? 1,300 tests? Why not say 13,000 tests or whatever number you pull from your arse…and then say, we can’t read the results. Demand better.