We investigate the effects of large group meetings on the spread of COVID-19 by studying
the impact of eighteen Trump campaign rallies. To capture the effects of subsequent contagion
within the pertinent communities, our analysis encompasses up to ten post-rally weeks for each
event. Our method is based on a collection of regression models, one for each event, that
capture the relationships between post-event outcomes and pre-event characteristics, including
demographics and the trajectory of COVID-19 cases, in similar counties. We explore a total
of 24 procedures for identifying sets of matched counties. For the vast majority of these
variants, our estimate of the average treatment effect across the eighteen events implies that
they increased subsequent confirmed cases of COVID-19 by more than 250 per 100,000 residents.
Extrapolating this figure to the entire sample, we conclude that these eighteen rallies ultimately
resulted in more than 30,000 incremental confirmed cases of COVID-19. Applying countyspecific post-event death rates, we conclude that the rallies likely led to more than 700 deaths
(not necessarily among attendees).

https://sebotero.github.io/papers/COVIDrallies_10_30_2000.pdf