People came from places including Tarrant County, Texas — home to Fort Worth — where new cases were up more than 50% in the two weeks before the rally. There’s also Shelby County, Tennessee, where Memphis is located, which put plans to loosen restrictions on hold last week after new infections spiked, and Wake County in North Carolina, where the state capital of Raleigh is and the virus is spreading faster than anywhere else in the state.

All three states and Oklahoma are seeing rising case numbers. The virus has spiked in Texas, with record new numbers reported in each of the past three days, prompting Governor Greg Abbott to halt the state’s reopening. Oklahoma also reported a record number of new infections on Thursday…

Steve Jimenez drove 300 miles from Fort Worth to attend the rally. He said the virus is a hoax.

“It’s about control,” Jimenez, 61, said while camped outside the arena on the eve of the rally. “The numbers are fabricated. They’re not real.”