South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem is continuing to defend her coronavirus strategy as a “balanced approach” that has kept the state’s economy humming even the state has had the nation’s 2nd-highest per capita rate of new COVID-19 cases the last 2 weeks.
Noem, currently campaigning in multiple states for President Trump’s reelection, used a Wednesday appearance on Fox News to focus attention on the pandemic’s economic impacts.
Noem has disparaged restrictions intended to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, only to see the number of cases shoot up to the second-highest rate of new cases per capita in the country over the past 2 weeks.
That trend’s apparently turned around. Wednesday’s numbers from the SD Dept of Health showed 413 recoveries and only 169 new confirmed COVID-19 cases. With no new deaths, that dropped the number of active cases to 2,434 – down nearly 600 since the weekend.
South Dakota has 15,571 cases with 12,964 recoveries, and 173 deaths. 76 people are currently hospitalized in the state.