Great News! 135,000 Attended The Indy 500 And Only 19 Tested Positive For COVID For A Grand Total of A .00014 Positivity Rate

From wthr.com:

INDIANAPOLIS — It was the largest sporting event held since the pandemic began. On May 30, around 135,000 people poured through the gates of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the 105th Running of the Indianapolis 500.

Race organizers had agreed to safety procedures approved by the Marion County Public Health Department to reduce chances of COVID-19 spread.

Less than a month later, MCPHD Director Dr. Virginia Caine said they only traced 19 people being infected and attending the race. The 19 people were all from Indiana and all lived outside of Marion County.

I love how "reducing" the usual Indy 500 crowd from 300K+ to 135K+ was the reason COVID-19 wasn't a super spreader as if 135,000 all sitting next to each other with rarely a mask in site wasn't the more important factor to report. 

135,000. The largest crowd in America since the Super Bowl in Miami in February of 2020. Local outlets in Indianapolis were running stories literally the week of the race about concern over the approved crowd at IMS not wearing masks. Race week, weekend, and day came. 19 positive tests. 

This means, quite literally, if you attended this year's Indianapolis 500 you had about the same odds of getting struck by lightning than you did of getting COVID. 

It also helps that IMS was the super host of COVID vaccines starting back in April. Looks like it paid off on race day. Hopefully this stat is continued to be used (it looks like it already is) when planning for college football and the NFL this fall. 

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