South Dakota health officials recorded a fifth straight day of more than 1,000 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 Sunday, but the number of active cases dropped because the number of recoveries went up even more.
The state health department reported 1,221 new cases, 12 deaths, and 2,555 recoveries to drop the number of active cases from 13,373 on Saturday to 13,138 on Sunday. There were 421 COVID-19 patients in hospitals with 79 in intensive care.
South Dakota has had 45,437 confirmed cases and 437 deaths since the start of the pandemic, but almost half of both came last month.
The number of new confirmed cases jumped from 8,880 in Sept to 21,827 in October with COVID-19 deaths skyrocketing from 56 to 202.