Despite the coronavirus pandemic, tens of thousands of motorcyclists will head to Daytona Beach, Florida, for the city’s annual Bike Week event.
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The city has reached an agreement with local bars for 60% of the internal capacity in exchange for licenses needed for temporary outdoor sales and entertainment.
“I am grateful to be open for Bike Week, thankful that the city allowed the sellers and the whole Bike Week thing,” Bobby Honeycutt, owner of Froggy’s Saloon, told The Daytona Beach News-Journal when the 10-day event started Friday. The bar is limited to 102 customers inside, but is serving in bathtubs and bars outside.
The Daytona Regional Chamber of Commerce, which organizes the event, estimates the presence of 300,000 to 400,000 motorcyclists. It usually attracts 500,000.
“We know it is likely to be lower just because of COVID’s concerns, as well as many still struggling to survive due to COVID’s loss of revenue,” said Janet Kersey, executive vice president of the chamber and chief operating officer.
Sam Acquaro is participating in his 46th consecutive Bike Week, although he believes his son caught the virus last year, which happened at a time when the pandemic began to spread across the country and the world. He’s staying outdoors.
“He really attacked him, and he must have taken that here,” he said. “So, I haven’t been to a restaurant since.”
At John’s Rock N Ride souvenir shop, owner Johnny Sanchez was selling a lot more beers for $ 3 than the designer masks he offered for $ 7. Almost no one is wearing them.
“As far as the masks are concerned, they are paying little attention to that,” said Sanchez, shrugging. “That’s the way it is. What can you do?”
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While the event continues as planned, city officials hope to prevent an outbreak of coronavirus similar to an incident at a motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota, in August.
About 19 percent of the 1.4 million new cases of coronavirus in the United States between August 2 and September 2 were related to the motorcycle event, according to researchers at the State University’s Center for Health Economics and Policy Studies from San Diego. There are more than 266,000 cases of coronavirus attributed to the 10-day event, to which more than 460,000 people attended, despite fears that it could become an event called a super-spreader.
“We concluded that the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally generated public health costs of approximately $ 12.2 billion,” wrote the researchers in an article. “That’s enough to have paid each of the estimated 462,182 participants in the $ 26,553.64 rally not to attend.”
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Bike Week takes place at a time when health officials expect an increase in trips to the state, as college students from across the country go to the beach for spring break.
Health experts have also urged Americans to remain vigilant as some states begin to reverse restrictions on the coronavirus.
Several variants of the COVID-19 virus have been identified in the United States, including a new variant in New York – which Dr. Anthony Fauci said is spreading “efficiently” across the state – in addition to the already documented South Africa and United States. Variants of the kingdom .
At the same time, Texas and Mississippi announced on Wednesday that they were removing mandates from the masks and lifting other restrictions.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that more than 90.3 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine were administered by Sunday. The state of Florida was responsible for more than 5.9 million of these doses administered.
Volusia County, where Daytona Beach is located, reported a total of 34,583 cases as of Sunday, including 576 non-residents, according to the latest data from the Florida Department of Health. There are currently 1,793 people hospitalized in the county and 677 related deaths.
Peter Aiken, Evie Fordham and the Fox News Associated Press contributed to this report