Rally held in Tulsa, OK, attracted 6,000 to 12,000 individuals to an indoor arena; this study, the first to explore the impact of this event on the spread of COVID-19, finds no net effect

Did President Trump's Tulsa Rally Reignite COVID-19? Indoor Events and Offsetting Community Effects. Dhaval M. Dave, Andrew I. Friedson, Kyutaro Matsuzawa, Drew McNichols, Connor Redpath, Joseph J. Sabia. NBER Working Paper No. 27522, July 2020. https://www.nber.org/papers/w27522

Abstract: On June 20, 2020, President Donald J. Trump held his first mass campaign rally following the outbreak of COVID-19. Held in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the political gathering attracted 6,000 to 12,000 individuals to the indoor Bank of Oklahoma (BOK) arena. This study is the first to explore the impact of this event on the spread of COVID-19. First, using data from Safegraph Inc, we show that while non-resident visits to census block groups hosting the Trump event grew by approximately 25 percent, there was no decline in net stay-at-home behavior in Tulsa county, reflecting important offsetting behavioral effects. Then, using data on coronavirus cases from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and a synthetic control design, we find little evidence that COVID-19 case growth grew more rapidly in Tulsa County, its border counties, or in the state of Oklahoma than each’s estimated counterfactual in the three weeks following the campaign rally. Difference-in-differences estimates further provide no evidence that COVID-19 case rates grew faster in counties that drew relatively larger shares of residents to the event. We conclude that offsetting behavioral responses to the rally — including voluntary closures of restaurants and bars in downtown Tulsa, increases in stay-at-home behavior, displacement of usual activities of weekend inflows, and smaller-than-expected crowd attendance — may be important mechanisms.