Trump rallies led to more than 700 Covid deaths, study says

Campaign rallies held by Donald Trump in the run up to the election have led to some 30,000 coronavirus infections and more than 700 deaths, according to a new study.

Stanford University economists examined the impact of 18 rallies held between 20 June and 30 September, 15 of which were held outdoors, Politico reported.

The working paper compares the spread of the virus after each event to parts of the country that didn't host rallies finding they increased subsequent confirmed cases of Covid-19 by more than 250 per 100,000 residents.

The president has faced intense criticism for continuing to hold rallies amidst the pandemic, particularly states seeing an increase in cases.  

Footage of the rallies has shown large tightly packed crowds with limited social distancing and many in attendance, including the president, not wearing masks.

“The communities in which Trump rallies took place paid a high price in terms of disease and death,” the authors, including B Douglas Bernheim, the chair of Stanford's economics department, wrote.

This year, amidst the obstructions caused by the pandemic, Mr Trump has relied on the packed rallies for both media attention and as a surrogate for more in-person events.

Trump campaign spokesperson Courtney Parella told Politico that attendees at the rallies have their temperature checked and are provided with masks that they are instructed to wear and given hand sanitizer.

“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,” Ms Parella said.

Mr Trump’s Democratic rival Joe Biden has kept a limited travel schedule in light of guidance to limit the spread of the virus amidst the outbreak.

“We’re not putting out super spreaders,” Mr Biden said last week in Pennsylvania. “Everybody’s wearing a mask and trying as best as we can to be socially distanced,” he said.

A spokesperson for Mr Biden, Andrew Gates, condemned the president’s continued organisation of large events.

"He's even costing hundreds of lives and sparking thousands of cases with super spreader rallies that only serve his own ego,” he told the outlet.

In defence of the rallies, White House spokesperson Judd Deere told Politico: "As the President has said, the cure cannot be worse than the disease and this country should be open armed with best practices and freedom of choice to limit the spread of Covid-19.

More than 9.28 million people have been infected with the novel coronavirus since the pandemic gripped hold of the country in March, leading to the deaths of 231,000 people.

Despite their continuation, some experts have warned that the large events are not providing any “additional benefit” in the run up to the election in terms of attracting new voters and may actually be driving some away.

“He needs to win over some folks. And what he’s doing is not only preventing him from winning over folks, it’s potentially pushing people away that might otherwise be with him, especially with the Covid stuff,” Nancy Zdunkewicz, a Democratic pollster with Change Research told Bloomberg.

Michael Mina, an epidemiologist at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health drew the effectiveness of the Stanford University study into question when speaking with Politico.

“There are better ways to look at this data through actual infectious disease epidemic lenses,” Prof Mina said.  

“It offers a data point, but nothing I would want to draw any strong conclusions from. It is also so overtly political that it makes it hard to distinguish if there were decisions made out of perhaps unrecognised bias.”

Eleanor Murray, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Boston University School of Public Health, told the outlet that the paper “applies an appropriate method with some good robustness and sensitivity checks.”

“If the key underlying assumption is realistic then the answer is probably something that could be relied upon,” Prof Murray said.