The Effects of Large Group Meetings on the Spread of COVID-19:
The Case of Trump Rallies
B. Douglas Bernheim
Nina Buchmann
Zach Freitas-Groff
Sebasti´an Otero*
October 30, 2020
Abstract :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 attendees).
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Table 1: List of rallies included in the analysis City Date Indoors (yes or no)
Tulsa 6/20/2020 Yes
Henderson 9/13/2020 Yes
Phoenix 6/23/2020 Yes
Mosinee 9/17/2020 No
Mankato 8/17/2020 No
Bemidji 9/18/2020 No
Oshkosh 8/17/2020
No Fayetteville 9/19/2020 No
Yuma 8/18/2020 No
Swanton 9/21/2020 No
Old Forge 8/20/2020 No
Vandalia 9/21/2020 No
Londonberry 8/28/2020 No
Pittsburgh 9/22/2020 No
Latrobe 9/3/2020 No
Jacksonville 9/24/2020 No
Winston-Salem 9/8/2020 No
Newport News 9/25/2020 No
Freeland 9/10/2020 No
Middletown 9/26/2020 No
Minden 9/12/2020 No
To download the complete study go to: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3722299
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