Last updated on 2020-03-24
In her coronavirus press briefing today, Governor Kristi Noem said “up to 30 percent of our population could get sick. That is literally tens of thousands of people in our state.”
30% of 882,000 South Dakotans is literally 265,000 people.
Among the first covid-19 cases reported in the U.S., 12% of patients are known to have been hospitalized. 24% of those patients required intensive care. 36% of those who went to the ICU died. Overall, that’s a 1.0% fatality/infection ratio. Those numbers ballpark around the Imperial College London March 16 figures (see page 5), which demonstrate the skew toward worse outcomes among older patients.
Let’s multiply those CDC percentages by Governor Noem’s projection:
- 265,000 South Dakotans could get covid-19.
- 32,000 South Dakotans would have to go to the hospital.
- 7,600 South Dakotans would have to go the ICU.
- 2,700 South Dakotans would die from the coronavirus.
| SD cities | Out of this population… | …how many would get sick? | … go to the hospital? | …go to the ICU? | …die from covid-19? |
| Sioux Falls | 181,883 | 54,565 | 6,548 | 1,571 | 566 |
| Rapid City | 75,443 | 22,633 | 2,716 | 652 | 235 |
| Aberdeen | 28,562 | 8,569 | 1,028 | 247 | 89 |
| Brookings | 24,509 | 7,353 | 882 | 212 | 76 |
| Huron | 13,696 | 4,109 | 493 | 118 | 43 |
| Spearfish | 11,688 | 3,506 | 421 | 101 | 36 |
| Madison | 7,437 | 2,231 | 268 | 64 | 23 |
| Montrose | 442 | 133 | 16 | 4 | 1 |
South Dakota has 4.8 hospital beds per 1,000 people. That’s 4,200 beds. Imperial College London figures covid-19 patients require eight days of hospitalization if they don’t need critical care and sixteen days if they do go to the ICU.
Aberdeen has 119 hospital beds at Avera St. Luke’s and 48 hospital beds at Sanford. Spearfish has 35 hospital beds. The Madison hospital has 22 beds.
So if you want to keep your local hospital open, not have patients sleeping in the hallways, and still have room alongside the coronavirus cases for folks with the usual assortment of heart attacks, motorcycle-wreck injuries, appendectomies, and childbirth, you’d better take some serious action (step 1: don’t go to the bar) to slow the spread of this disease.
We could have a billion bucks if these republicans would pull their heads out. How silly are these people? A billion bucks is just sitting there waiting for this by a simple Medicaid Expansion. She clearly is not a leader and proves she is a one term lame ducky.
GNOem gives the numbers like the person we’re starting to realize she is, a person lacking empathy. Yeah, those people are gonna need hospitalization, how are the hospitals gonna be paid? Your rainy day fund is shrinking by the second.
Ice rinks are temporary morgues in Spain. So, South Dakota, at least we have that going for us in some cities. And we have auditoriums for more beds or morgues. The Denny Sanford Premier Center Arena, could be utilized for the Sanford Hospital addition that they could share with Avera. Would patients be in network in these hospitals or will they be hauled around to find a bed from their network provider. Ask…don’t get a surprise.
So Klueless Kristi has the facts and she tells the citizens of the state, so that’s good. Then she demonstrates her compassionate heart and leadership skills by ordering, uh, ……. nothing.
Wait. Thousands and thousands of South Dakotans are in danger from a highly contagious and potentially lethal disease and the governor sits on her hands along with the rest of the SDGOP leadership?
It actually could be worse. The Texas lt. gov is telling elders they should be willing to die to save the economy. Seriously.
Seriously.
We’ve always had coronavirus here in South Dakota, for decades. Coronavirus exists in cattle and every meat we raise to eat. One day a pandemic will epicenter here or someplace very similar and CAFO’s seem to be perfect for it. It will be caused by the cross contamination of something like chronic wasting disease, cattle coronovirus and something else as the catalysts. This covid-19 is humanities wake up call, global warming and our cavalier attitude about our surroundings and it will be back, so we had better get used to what we have given ourselves and figure ways to social distance for our future. Put money into healthcare and science, all things that are foreign to republicans. But we must drag them along for the good of us all.
No corporate bailouts for airlines, banks and big oil for starters.