WASHINGTON (AP) – No crowds at Disneyland, still closed by coronavirus; less enthusiastic attended the World Series this year than at any time of the last century; The big concerts are canceled.
But that’s another story in Trumpland: thousands of Supporters of President Donald Trump gather at election rallies across the country: optional mask and disapproved social estating.
Trump’s rallies are among the biggest occasions in the country that defy crowd restrictions designed to prevent the virus from spreading. This comes at a time when public fitness experts advise others to think twice before even inviting many visitors to Thanksgiving Dinner.
“No matter who you are or where you are, when you have collection locations where other people are crowded and virtually no one wears a mask, the best setup is to have an epidemic of acquisition and transmissibility,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease specialist, recently told Yahoo News, “It’s a clinical and public fitness fact. “
Trump’s campaign, which distributes masks and hand sanitist at its rallies, says those who take the component are nonviolent protesters who, like Black Lives Matter protesters, have the right to meet.
Some states have fined places where Trump makes demonstrations for violating crowd size limits, but demonstrations continue, even though in the United States cases soar, especially in the Midwest and plains. The country recorded a record number of new infections last week, nearly 500,000.
And the crowd continues to Trump.
Ysabel Benejam, 69, from West Bloomfield, Michigan, drove about 90 minutes to Lansing and waited more than 4 hours in rainy, nearly freezing temperatures to see Trump on Tuesday.
“I’m not afraid at all,” benejam said, dressed in a “Make America Great Again” hat and a “Trump 2020” mask. “We’ll have to get back to normal. “
Democrat Joe Biden, on the other hand, has moved away from rallies and instead hosts online and car events where others honk their horns to show their support. public fitness experts.
Since February 7, when Trump told Bob Woodward that he knew the coronavirus was airfed and more fatal than the flu, the president has held more than 50 demonstrations in more than two dozen states, which were interrupted for a maximum of March, April, and May due to the pandemic After its resumption in late June , they took position basically outdoors at airports.
The use of the mask is irregular. Some other people cover their mouths but not their noses, and at the end of Trump’s one-hour speeches, a mask hangs low around other people’s chins. The crusade focuses on asking other people sitting behind Trump, who would possibly be captured. on the camera – to wear mask, but do not fit.
Pete Kingsley, 80, from Strasbourg, Pennsylvania, unmasked as he approached the security line at Trump’s rally at Lititz on Monday, said he thought the virus damaged Trump’s chance of re-election and “hits the economy, destroying it. “”
“If I want to put on a mask, I’ll wear it,” he says. “If I don’t, I probably won’t use it. “
Lita Ciaccio, 65, from Laurel, Maryland, was afraid of contracting the virus, but she still showed up. He arrived with a mask and a plastic face and said he planned to stand on the “edges” of the crowd.
Not everyone is satisfied with Trump’s arrival in town.
Trump held a demonstration on September 25 in Newport News, Virginia, despite public officials warning that he would violate Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam’s executive order banning meetings of more than 250 people.
Zach Nayer, a resident of Riverside Regional Medical Center in Newport News, and a colleague then compiled the county’s knowledge of new coronavirus cases at Trump’s expired June rally sites on the Newport News occasion. They reviewed the number of cases in the previous 14 days. and after each occasion and published its effects on the STAT fitness data site.
They found that peaks in COVID-19 cases occurred in seven of the 14 towns and municipalities where demonstrations took place: Tulsa, Oklahoma; Phoenix; Old Forge, Pennsylvania; Bemidji and Mankato, Minnesota; and Oshkosh and Weston, Wisconsin.
However, the researchers stated that the accumulation of cases may be definitely related to the meetings.
“We’ve had a massive build-up of cases in the last six to eight weeks,” said Judy Burrows, a public data officer at the Marathon County Department of Health, which includes Weston, Wisconsin.
She said the branch was far away in handling individual cases and had not been able to do a complete task to locate the locations where other people contracted the virus. Many other people on the network attend massive meetings, but the fitness branch has no knowledge suggesting that one is more to blame than the other, he said.
“This is not about Trump. This is not about Biden or whoever is coming in right now,” Burrows said. The challenge is for other people to move to places where there are many other people. They do not hide others. This is not social distancing. Don’t do the kinds of things that can slow the spread. ‘
Trump’s demonstrations have infuriated Democrats in battlefield states, Christopher Gibbs, a farmer from Maplewood, Ohio, who voted for Trump in 2016 but now supports Biden.
Gibbs is president of a new organization called Rural America 2020, which has sponsored dozens of billboards across the country to raise significant unrest for rural citizens. After the president returned to the polling station, the organization reused the billboards and will use them to warn citizens. of the dangers of their events.
The organization towed a plane with a long banner over Omaha, Nebraska, before Tuesday’s demonstration. He said, “Beware! Superhighner Trump visits NE. Mask!”
In Minnesota, Democratic Gov. Tim Walz said he was “deeply disappointed” to be informed that compliance with state rules of masking and social esturing was poor in Vice President Mike Pence’s demonstration Monday in the city of Hibbing.
Trump’s crusade paid $1,000 to get the rally site, under an airport contract that included a provision that the rally complied with Minnesota’s restrictions. Hibbing police calculated the crowd at 650, above the state limit of 250 due to COVID-19.
The Minnesota Department of Health said 24 cases of coronavirus were reported among others who attended the main occasions of Trump’s crusade in the state, adding 16 at a rally in Bemidji. The branch said another 4 cases had been reported among anti-Trump protesters who attended the event. Rally Bemidji.
Concerned about the spread of the coronavirus, orchards at the Treworgy family circle in the Levant, Maine, expressed regret this week over Trump’s scale at his company on Sunday.
The orchard said he expected the president to make a visit without warning, surprise some other people, and take pictures with pumpkins. Instead, word spread and many others, many without a mask, appeared and covered the direction of the procession towards the orchard, which has a mask and a policy of social estating.
“We didn’t know that this scale in would be open to the public without our ability to enforce our policies,” the orchard staff said. He wasn’t supposed to move freely.
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Associated Press editors Tom Tait in Las Vegas, Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis and Aamer Madhani and Jill Colvin in Washington contributed to the report.