The South Dakota Dept of Health reported 609 new cases of COVID-19 and 10 deaths on Wednesday, bringing the total number of cases to 25,906 and deaths to 258.
Two of the deaths were from Pennington County with one from Meade County while the new cases included 7 from Fall River County and 6 from Oglala Lakota County.
There were also 688 more recoveries listed, bringing that total to 21,137 while the number of individuals hospitalized with the coronavirus increased to 273.
The number of active cases jumped by 332 to 4,511 but the big increase is partly because the state has changed how it counts cases as confirmed or probable.
It now uses the national surveillance case definition for COVID-19. As a result, 47 of the new cases are considered probable.
Under the new definition, a confirmed case includes a person with a positive RT-PCR test while a probable case includes those with a positive antigen test for the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
A positive case moves from active to recovered status based on the CDC guidelines for removal from isolation.
On the school front, the DOH is reporting 1,784 cases in K-12 schools statewide – 1,262 students and 522 staff – with 1,363 fully recovered. At the college level, there are 1,448 cases – 1,370 students and 78 staff – with 1,344 cases fully recovered.
The state says hospital capacity remains in good shape, but a small hospital serving the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe has sent two coronavirus patients to an out-of-state hospital after failing to find beds at better-equipped in-state facilities.
. The Cheyenne River Sioux Health Department says it went to Burnsville, Minn, after being turned down by 14 hospitals that said they were diverting COVID-19 patients, too. The state says hospital diversions are a regular occurrence.