31 October 2020 — 0629 mdt
Will Mr. Covid attend? You betcha he will.
Will the Donald Trump, Jr., Halloween GOTV
rally in Kalispell be a superspreader event?
President Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump, Jr., a notorious shooter of prairie dogs, will speak in Kalispell this evening at an outdoor get out the vote and buck up the spirits of the faithful rally at the Flathead County Fairgrounds. Tristan Scott of the Flathead Beacon has the details.
The fairground’s grandstand, built in 1938, seats 2,700 shoulder-to-shoulder, and approximately 700 with six-foot Covid-19 social distancing.
According to Scott, “…organizers of Saturday’s event said it is being held in an outdoor venue and social distancing will be a priority.”
It may not be that high a priority if the Trump campaign’s track record is any guide. In Duluth, MN, Trump’s campaign agreed to a 250-person limit for an airport rally. Ten times as many attended:
In the days leading up to the Sept. 30 event in Duluth, Minn., local officials had privately pressed the campaign to abide by state public health guidelines aimed at slowing the spread of the novel coronavirus, documents show. In response, the campaign signed an agreement pledging to follow those rules, limiting attendance to 250 people.
On the day of the rally, however, Trump supporters flooded onto the tarmac at Duluth International Airport. They stood shoulder to shoulder, many without masks.
“We have been notified that the 250 person limit has been exceeded,” an airport representative emailed a campaign official late that afternoon. “This email serves as our notice of a contract violation and we are requesting you remedy the situation.”
The warning went unheeded — and unanswered.
Held two days before Trump was diagnosed with covid-19, the disease the virus causes, the rally was attended by more than 2,500 people, airport officials estimated.
Trump’s campaign agreed to pay $20,000 for the Duluth rally. But we don’t know whether the campaign paid the fee because the airport’s manager signed a broad nondisclosure agreement:
On Oct. 5, Hanke, the attorney for the airport, sent the campaign a formal letter asserting that it had breached the agreement’s 250-person limit. The letter also said the Trump campaign had not paid the airport the $20,000 fee for hosting the event.
Two weeks later, officials won’t say whether that fee has been paid. “That information is covered under our nondisclosure agreement and cannot be released,” a spokeswoman for the airport said in an email. [Washington Post]
Did the manager of the Flathead Fairgrounds also sign an NDA? If so, was it limited to security arrangement for which there might be a legitimate reason to limit public disclosure, or was it as broad as the NDA signed by the airport manager in Duluth?
Perhaps the Republicans who assemble in the grandstands this evening will keep their distance and wear face masks. Perhaps. But don’t bet the ranch on it. Don’t even bet a bale of rotten hay. Trumpland does not observe Covid containing measures. Instead it flaunts noncompliance with crucial public health measures.
Therefore, there’s a high probability that in two weeks new Covid cases will spike in the Flathead, and that the new cases will be traced to this evening’s trick at the fairgrounds.