Month: October 2020

Octavia Spencer Shares Why She Broke Down in Tears Over Keanu Reeves’ Birthday Tribute

By Jaime E. Love 1 day ago

Good friends are so hard to come by, but apparently not for Octavia Spencer.

During a virtual Oct. 22 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, The Help actress shared how she didn’t get to spend her 50th birthday how she originally planned—with multiple dinners and a retreat to Hawaii with her team. Instead, the Oscar winner received special, star-studded tribute videos from close friends, past co-stars and more.

“Chris Evans is a dear friend. Katy Perry is a dear friend. Then Keanu Reeves, you know like, surprised me,” she told host Jimmy Kimmel. “Of course I started crying like a baby, like, ‘Keanu!’ It was so fabulous.”

She continued, “He’s somebody I like and my friends know that and it was like the sweetest thing.” The Constantine actor was actually the first celebrity she met when she moved from Alabama to Los Angeles to pursue acting.

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Sturgis Motorcycle Rally Linked To COVID-19 Outbreak Across Upper Midwest

By Jaime E. Love 3 days ago

The 80th annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally will go down in infamy as a “superspreader event” that led to hundreds of thousands COVID-19 cases spanning several states and cost billions of dollars for public health care agencies. It was the nearly two-week event in August that drew half a million attendees, some of whom saw Smash Mouth frontman Steve Harwell tell a packed crowd, “We’re all here together tonight! Fuck that COVID shit.”

And while the Sturgis rally is directly linked to 330 cases, experts believe it could be responsible for the Upper Midwest outbreak in the United States, according to a new report from the Washington Post. 

The rally took place in South Dakota where no restrictions on gatherings were being imposed. Even as health officials pleaded with possible attendees to skip this year’s event, many were defiant over the belief that their freedoms were being taken away. Many

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Sturgis Motorcycle Rally may have helped spread coronavirus across Midwest

By Jaime E. Love 5 days ago
Motorcyclists ride down Main Street during the 80th Annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally on 7 August 2020 in Sturgis, South Dakota (Getty)
Motorcyclists ride down Main Street during the 80th Annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally on 7 August 2020 in Sturgis, South Dakota (Getty)

The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota in mid-August may have directly led to a spike in cases of Covid-19 across five states.

More than 330 coronavirus cases and one death were directly linked to the rally as of mid-September, according to a Washington Post survey of health departments in 23 states that provided information.

That number likely represents just the tip of the iceberg, according to experts.

Contact tracing often doesn’t capture the source of infection, and asymptomatic spread goes unnoticed.

Within weeks of the Sturgis rally, South Dakota, North Dakota, Wyoming, Minnesota, and Montana were leading the surge in new coronavirus cases.

The Dakotas saw case numbers and rates of hospitalisation rise enormously throughout September, and into October.

It may never be confirmed how many cases stemmed

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How the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally may have spread coronavirus across the Upper Midwest

By Jaime E. Love 1 week ago

A lifelong motorcycle enthusiast, the 50-year-old construction worker and father of five had been determined to go to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, a holy grail for bikers. Even when his girlfriend, Angie Balcom, decided to stay back because she was worried about being around so many people during a pandemic, Cervantes was adamant about going.

“I don’t think there was nothing that was going to stop me,” he said.

Back home, Cervantes took Tylenol for his throat and went to bed early. But he woke up the next morning coughing so hard he struggled to catch his breath. Over the next few days, the pain in his chest made him fear that his heart might stop, and a test later confirmed he had the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease covid-19. He was admitted to the hospital 11 days later, on Aug. 27. Soon, his girlfriend and his

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