Minnesota’s governor yesterday joined the chorus of those saying the Sturgis motorcycle rally shouldn’t have been held because of the risk — now proven reality — of spreading COVID-19. The governor of viral South Dakota is on the hoax team, of course.

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Then there was news in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette today of the linkage of dozens of virus cases to a recent Christian motorcycle gathering in Mena. It was exempt from state rules for group meetings as a religious gathering.

The Health Department shared its guidelines with the organizers, but they appeared not to follow them, Dillaha said.

 

“They didn’t social-distance or wear masks,” she said of the attendees.

 

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I believe this is a video from the meeting. Lots of singing. Lots of preaching. No masks visible in the clips I watched.

This is, to use a scientific phrase, nuts. If you may declare exemption from public health guidelines on religious grounds (and thus free to spread the viral word to anyone you encounter elsewhere) why not declare Razorback football games out of reach of regulation? It’s a religion if there ever was one.

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Governor Hutchinson will impose no limits on such groups, or for that matter effectively enforce guidelines on the unchurched. Go to work. Go to school. Keep the tax dollars flowing for his slush fund to finance another tax cut for millionaires. Wear a mask or not. Lie to contract tracers or not.  ARKANSAS IS READY FOR BUSINESS!

Sad!

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But hats off to Fayetteville for canceling what would have been a candidate for another super spreader, as noted in a Tweet yesterday by a UA faculty member.