It's hard to follow a headline like South Dakota Governor Noem helps drain the swamp by bringing the alligators to Pierre, so here's a digest of what we've been reading about South DaCovid today.
KELOLAND reported South Dakota tops list of states with the highest COVID-19 death rates this week.
And in COVID-19 in South Dakota: 1,291 new total cases; Death toll rises to 995; Active cases at 14,857, this news:
Forty-seven new COVID-19 deaths were reported in Wednesday’s update from the South Dakota Department of Health.
The death toll is now at 995. There have been 49 deaths reported in December. The new deaths were 24 men and 23 women in the following age ranges: 40-49 (1), 60-69 (8), 70-79 (8) and 80+ (30).
On Wednesday, 1,291 new coronavirus cases were announced bringing the state’s total case count to 82,203, up from Tuesday (80,912). Total recovered cases are now at 66,351, up from Tuesday (65,876). . . .
Remember, in 2019, the US Census estimated that the state's population was 884,659.
The state made a cameo appearance in David Armstrong's States With Few Coronavirus Restrictions Are Spreading the Virus Beyond Their Borders at ProPublica on Tuesday:
As the number of COVID-19 cases skyrockets nationwide, the extent of the public health response varies from one state — and sometimes one town — to the next. The incongruous approaches and the lack of national standards have created confusion, conflict and a muddled public health message, likely hampering efforts to stop the spread of the virus. The country’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said last month that the country needs “a uniform approach” to fighting the virus instead of a “disjointed” one.
Nowhere are these regulatory disparities more counterproductive and jarring than in the border areas between restrictive and permissive states; for example, between Washington and Idaho, Minnesota and South Dakota, and Illinois and Iowa. In each pairing, one state has imposed tough and sometimes unpopular restrictions on behavior, only to be confounded by a neighbor’s leniency. Like factories whose emissions boost asthma rates for miles around, a state’s lax public health policies can wreak damage beyond its borders.
“In some ways, the whole country is essentially living with the strategy of the least effective states because states interconnect and one state not doing a good job will continue to spread the virus to other states,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. “States can’t wall themselves off.”
A motorcycle rally in August in Sturgis, South Dakota, with half a million attendees from around the country spread COVID-19 to neighboring Minnesota and beyond, according to Melanie Firestone, an epidemic intelligence service officer for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who co-authored a report on the event’s impact.
South Dakota “didn’t have policies regarding mask use or event size, and we see that there was an impact in a state that did have such policies,” Firestone said. “The findings from this outbreak support having consistent approaches across states. We are all in it together when it comes to stopping the spread of COVID-19.”
Viruses don’t respect geographic boundaries. While some states require visitors, especially from high-risk areas, to be tested or quarantined, others like South Dakota have no such restrictions. Many people who are tired of strict COVID-19 measures in their states have escaped to areas where everyday life more closely resembles pre-pandemic times. There, with fewer protections, they’re at risk of contracting the virus and bringing it back home. . . .
South Dakota has largely remained open for business during the pandemic. Gov. Kristi Noem, an ally of Trump’s, has refused to impose a mask mandate, saying there are questions about its effectiveness. The state has not placed any restrictions on bars and restaurants and officials allowed the 10-day motorcycle rally in Sturgis. Such a rally would have been prohibited in Minnesota. Both Minnesota and South Dakota are in the top five states when it comes to rates of cases per capita over the last week.
The CDC advises that outdoor events are less risky than indoor ones. The Sturgis rally, which featured events in both settings, is now linked to at least 86 COVID-19 cases in Minnesota, including four people who were hospitalized and one death, according to a CDC report released in November. The report said the total is likely an undercount as some of those infected declined to share their close contacts with health officials. . . .
“These findings highlight the far-reaching effects that gatherings in one area might have on another area,” the researchers wrote. They added, “This rally not only had a direct impact on the health of attendees, but also led to subsequent SARS-CoV-2 transmission among household, social, and workplace contacts of rally attendees upon their return to Minnesota.”
Mike Kuhle, the mayor of Worthington, Minnesota, said South Dakota’s approach to the pandemic “is a source of heartburn for me and sleepless nights.” His city is close to both the South Dakota and Iowa borders. In addition to worries about the virus spreading from South Dakota, Kuhle said, “during the lockdown people have gone to Sioux Falls for shopping. It’s ugly for our businesses.”
Read the rest at ProPublica. At the South Dakota Standard, John Tsitrian writes in Noem says masks don’t work. The Surgeon General disagrees. He says "the science has never been stronger.":
“Mask mandates don’t work - they haven’t worked anywhere in the world. We respectfully request the news media cover the facts.” That tart and defensive response to a query from INFORUM came from SD Gov. Kristi Noem’s office yesterday through Noem’s senior policy advisor Maggie Seidel. Noem famously refuses to even mention mask-wearing as an effective course of action in the spread of COVID-19, much less consider mandating it. She and her spokesperson Seidel must be sick and tired of constantly dealing with this, but, hey, it’s no easy task contradicting reality. It’s no surprise her impatience boiled over, setting off Seidel’s unambiguous and uninformed reply to the “news media.”
The “my mind is made up and ain’t nothin’ gonna change it” tone that the administration takes on this issue is unbecoming of leadership that should be able to at least acknowledge that a growing body of evidence is supporting the fact that mask mandates do, indeed, work..
So frustrated with the reflexive rejection of face mask mandates were the editors at Nature that they asked “how much evidence is enough?” when publishing their collection of data last October. The results strongly support the value of face masks as a way of slowing down the spread of COVID-19.
Just over a week ago National Public Radio aired a piece titled Mask Mandates Work To Slow Spread Of Coronavirus, Kansas Study Finds. The results showed counties that chose to enforce the the state’s mandate saw their cases decrease. Counties that chose to opt out saw their cases continue to rise. Researchers note that this was not a controlled study, so it’s possible that factors (mainly lifestyle-oriented) other than face masks may have been at play. Just the same, “the findings were consistent with declines in coronavirus cases observed in 15 states and the District of Columbia where masks were mandated, compared with states that didn't require the face coverings,” reported NPR.
I also note that last Sunday, Trump-appointed U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams spoke forcefully in favor of mask-wearing on Fox News Sunday (5:50 on the video), saying “the science out there has never been stronger to support the wearing of masks . . . a mask is an instrument of freedom.”
Noem and her mouthpiece Seidel can’t hold a candle to the scientific expertise that dominates the mask supporting side of this unfortunately politicized “debate.” Given Dr. Adams’ stature and credibility, I’d certainly take his advice before going along with Noem’s silly attitude that what we need in South Dakota is less COVID and more hunting.
The Noem administration’s dismissal of media reports that contradict their insistence that masks don’t work is arrogant and dangerous, and particularly tragic as we approach the grim milestone of a thousand of us South Dakotans having succumbed to this pestilence.
It’s time to wake up, Gov. Noem.
Read the The South Dakota Standard.
But it's not just COVID-19 and mask denial coming out of Pierre. Cory Allen Heidelberger sums up the latest cronyism in nvestigation of Capitol Dome Logo Reveals $2K Branding Deal for BOA Sub-Boss’s Wife.
That's the Bureau of Administration.
He writes:
Bob Mercer digs and digs and finds a tidbit of self-dealing in the Bureau of Administration.
At first, it looked like we had a simple case of silliness in advertising (and that’s nothing new for the state government that brought us, “Why Die on Mars?“, “Don’t Jerk and Drive,” and “Meth. We’re On It™“). The Bureau of Administration procured a logo that featured a capitol dome in its O, and the dome looked like the U.S. Capitol rather than the South Dakota Capitol. Mercer asked the state about the logo, got the Governor’s attack chihuahua Ian Fury to bark that “we are quite happy” with the design, and then saw the logo quietly change to a new design that harkens more clearly to our own dome.
But then Mercer noticed that the state appears to have paid $2,000 for BOA branding to the wife of a BOA boss. . .
Mercer has all the receipts and graphics in Billing for a state-government logo was from same address as home of a key state official.
If you or a family member can't capture a patch of branding graft in South Dakota, what's the use of being part of the Noem administration?
If $2,000 is just chump change in your eyes, a headline in Wednesday's Argus Leader might get them popping: Deadline approaching: More than half of South Dakota's $1.25B stimulus remains unspent.
Just a taste of Joe Sneves's reporting:
Gov. Kristi Noem's administration is scrambling to put more than a quarter billion dollars of remaining pandemic relief funds to use before it's too late.
Back in March, President Trump and Congress sent billions to states through the CARES Act to soften the economic blow of the COVID-19 pandemic, and set a deadline of spending the money before year's end.
South Dakota's $1.25 billion stimulus was designated by the governor for schools and local and state governments with unexpected expenses related to COVID-19, as well as a series of grant programs to help businesses, non-profits, hospitals and long-term care facilities hurting financially due to the pandemic.
But with the Dec. 30 deadline for states to use their CARES Act money fast approaching, hundreds of millions remain in state coffers.
Oh good. Read the rest at the Argus Leader.
Related posts:
- South Dakota Governor Noem helps drain the swamp by bringing the alligators to Pierre
- Noem's office remains in mask denial, despite pleas from doctors, indigenous lawmakers
- Positive Pants: South DaCOVID Governor Kristi Noem garners the best national headlines
- VIDEO: Stop the Spread SD's South Dakota COVID-19 Memorial Display
Photo: Governor Kristi Noem. A horse. She's on it.
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