In the small town (population 266) where we live, we learn about COVID-19 infections through word-of-mouth and "pings" from the local school where two of our romantic partner's grandchildren are enrolled, as well as from his tribe's communication resources.
That small footprint of misery is reflected in the larger news reporting about the state. At the Sioux Falls Argus Leader, Alfonzo Galvan reported Saturday in South Dakota reports single-day record for COVID related deaths:
South Dakota announced their highest single day record for COVID-19 related deaths on Saturday after the Department of Health reported 1,855 new cases.
There are now 18,747 active coronavirus cases in South Dakota. The state reported 53 more deaths, bringing the total since the start of the pandemic to 621. The record high number of deaths could be attributed to the delay in reporting deaths caused by Veterans Day.
The previous high recorded was 28 deaths in a single day. . . .
The Argus Leader is owned by the same folks who own USA Today. In The Dakotas are 'as bad as it gets anywhere in the world' for COVID-19, Joe Shannon reports:
South Dakota welcomed hundreds of thousands of visitors to a massive motorcycle rally this summer, declined to cancel the state fair and still doesn't require masks. Now its hospitals are filling up and the state's current COVID-19 death rate is among the worst in the world.
The situation is similarly dire in North Dakota, with the state's governor recently moving to allow health care workers who have tested positive for COVID-19 to continue working if they don't show symptoms. It's a controversial policy recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a crisis situation where hospitals are short-staffed.
And now — after months of resisting a statewide mask mandate — North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum changed course late Friday, ordering masks to be worn statewide and imposing several business restrictions. . . .
Both North and South Dakota now face a predictably tragic reality that health experts tell USA TODAY could have been largely prevented with earlier public health actions.
Pandemics require people to give up some of their freedoms for the greater good, University of British Columbia psychiatry professor Steven Taylor told USA TODAY. In conservative regions like the Dakotas and elsewhere in the world, it's common to see push back like an “allergic reaction to being told what to do,” said Taylor, author of "The Psychology of Pandemics".
But months of lax regulations have contributed to a growing public health crisis in the Dakotas.
North Dakota's COVID-19 death rates per capita in the past week are similar to the hardest hit countries in the world right now — Belgium, Czech Republic and Slovenia — according to Saturday New York Times data. That data also places South Dakota's recent per capita deaths among the world's highest rates.
And there's currently nowhere in the U.S. where COVID-19 deaths are more common than in the Dakotas, according to data published by The COVID Tracking Project.
It's a situation “as bad as it gets anywhere in the world," Dr. William Haseltine told USA TODAY. . . .
Haseltine, president of ACCESS Health International and author of My Lifelong Fight Against Disease, blamed politicians — especially South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem — for ignoring public health measures that have been successfully used to curb the spread of the virus elsewhere in the world.
Noem has cast doubt on whether wearing masks in public is effective, saying that she’ll leave it up to the people to decide. She has said the virus can’t be stopped. . . .
On Friday, Noem's office responded to President-elect Joe Biden's proposed nationwide lockdown and mask mandate by saying she has no intention of using state resources to enforce any federal COVID-19 orders.
"It's a good day for freedom. Joe Biden realizes that the president doesn't have the authority to institute a mask mandate," said Ian Fury, communications specialist for Noem. "For that matter, neither does Gov. Noem, which is why she has provided her citizens with the full scope of the science and trusted them to make the best decisions for themselves and their loved-ones."
Fury said in an emailed statement that a third of the state's hospital beds are open and 20% are used by COVID-19 patients. "We have availability in all regions of our state," the statement reads.
In response to critics, including Andrew Cuomo — New York's Democratic governor whose handling of the pandemic has been mostly praised by many public health experts — Noem remained defiant. . . .
Read the article at USA Today.
For National Public Radio, Christina Silva reports in COVID-19 Hospitalizations Surge In Dakotas: 'It's Like We Opened Up A Spigot':
Hospitals are nearing capacity in North and South Dakota, two states where coronavirus has hit disproportionately hard for their small population size and where cases continue to rise daily.
The Dakotas have the most new daily cases per capita of any other state this week — a record they've held or been close to for many weeks. They're also among the worst in the country for two other grim metrics: per capita deaths and per capita hospitalizations. . . .
In South Dakota, it's "a possibility" the state might follow North Dakota's lead in letting COVID-19 positive health care workers work if cases continue to surge, Dr. Shankar Kurra, vice president of medical affairs at Monument Health Rapid City Hospital in South Dakota, told NPR's All Things Considered
"South Dakota has seen a rise in cases over the last four to five weeks, and we are on that exponential curve," he said. "And what it has done is put a lot of strain on our capacity in the hospital."
He went on to say that the "mathematics of infection are very clear... We are one of the rampant spread states. And when you have that kind of a community-wide spread with positivity rates in the high 20s and 30s, the likelihood of any of your workers falling ill and therefore unable to take care of folks is distinctly possible."
He said they planned for this influx when they saw cases rise on the east coast in March, preparing an entire hospital floor for COVID-19 treatment. Now, they're having to get creative with staffing.
"If we ever have a surge like, say, North Dakota, we can shut down our ambulatory services and then repurpose those staff and even our more non-critical areas such as ORs that are not trauma and not essential emergency procedures," Kurra told NPR's Ailsa Chang.
Kurra went on to say that he's very worried about what's coming this winter. "Coming into November, December and January, this is sad to say, but we will see an increase in cases and increase in hospitalizations," he said. "Our biggest worry is to maintain capacity, be able to take care of critically ill folks that need ICU level of care and will quickly run out of that if these numbers continue." . . .
The Associated Press's Grant Schulte reports Surging virus cases get a shrug in many Midwestern towns.
At Dakota Free Press, Cory Allen Heidelberger writes Gov. Noem Refuses to Help Fight Coronavirus, Says Staying Home Doesn’t Stop Spread.
So it goes, wrote the American author who lived through the fire-bombing of Dresden. We have not yet suffered that fever-pitch in this pandemic, though one of our partner's daughters recovered from being quite sick.'
Graphic: A riff on South Dakota's famously foolish campaign, "Meth: We're on it."
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