There’s a massive motorcycle rally going on at Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri, right now.
The event started Wednesday and was expected to grow in size through the weekend. By Thursday, bikers packed into bars and restaurants along the Bagnel Dam Strip in Lake Ozark.
Hundreds of bikes were parked in the center turn lane of the town’s main drag. Only a handful of the tourists that crammed into town were spotted wearing masks. There are no limits on mass gatherings in this part of the state. And though larger cities like Kansas City and St. Louis have mandatory mask orders, few places around the lake have such measures.
Bikefest attracted 125,000 bikers last year, which is not nearly as many as the 500,000 who attended the infamous Sturgis, South Dakota rally last month. Researchers are arguing over how much of a spike Sturgis actually caused, but there is widespread agreement that that “the Sturgis event led to a spike in COVID-19 cases in the county that hosted the rally as well as in surrounding areas.”
Lake of the Ozarks is a few counties away from me, but I’m sure some local bikers are there now. And St. Francois County is now number 1! The county’s 465 new cases over the past seven days gives us a cases-per-100,000 population rate of 692, which is the highest rate of the state. In comparison, St. Louis County had 1,213 new cases over the past seven days, but their cases-per-100,000 rate is just 122.
The Lake of the Ozarks region stretches across three counties with cases-per-100,000 rates ranging from 224 go 320. We’ll see how that changes.
I wrote a couple of days ago that the county had instituted a mask mandate, to begin Monday. Today the local paper is reporting that the county has been pressured to back off. The mandate is still supposed to start on Monday, but apparently it’s not going to be enforced.
I don’t go anywhere.
Mask protesters in front of the St. Francois County courthouse on September 18. Daily Journal photo.
Natural selection is evidently a very slow process, other than for things like volcano-diving.
So it's not a real "mandate."
Then what the hell is it called, since apparently you have a choice?!?
An "optiondate?"
No, that sounds like something that randy ancient tart, Roger Stone, would invite all forms of "PREEEVERTS (as Archie Bunker used to say)" to a weekend 'debauch' at his house.
I remember back in the 80's having to land at the Lake of the Ozarks airport in a Lear. I especially noted the part of the airport description about the likelihood of snakes on the runway. Apparently, the snakes have multiplied.
Lake of the Ozarks is barely in the Ozarks, anyway. Iron County is where the mountains are really pretty.
I couldn't help noticing the "Freedom Over Fear" sign in the last photo, which is quite something when you consider that Trumpites live in fear literally all the time. In fact, when they need a shot of victimhood, they come right out and blubber about how afraid they are.