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Oglala Sioux Tribe Responds to First Pine Ridge Coronavirus Case with Immediate Lockdown

South Dakota reported its first case of coronavirus on March 10. 29 days later, South Dakota remains one of five states whose governor has not issued an enforceable statewide stay-home order.

The Pine Ridge Reservation reported its first case of coronavirus yesterday, on April 7. That case involves a school employee who had traveled to California March 26 and returned to quarantine for two weeks and thus had no contact with children or school staff. Within hours, Oglala Sioux Tribal President Julian Bear Runner ordered a 72-hour lockdown of the entire reservation:

“If you are out and about for such reasons other than what was noted in the shelter-in-place ordinance, you will be fined, you will pulled over,” President Julian Bear Runner said while reading the lockdown executive order on KILI radio. “There’s too much” travel for non-essential purposes going on, he said.

The lockdown — which was triggered by the discovery of the first COVID-19 case on the reservation — went into effect at 6 p.m. on Tuesday and will be lifted at 6 p.m. on Friday, the order says [Arielle Zionts, “Pine Ridge Reservation on 72-Hour Lockdown After First COVID-19 Case,” Rapid City Journal, 2020.04.07].

Oglala Sioux Tribe coronavirus lockdown order, 2020.04.07
Oglala Sioux Tribe coronavirus lockdown order, posted to OST Twitter, 2020.04.07

Anyone care to make a crack about Indian Time?

4 Comments

  1. Richard Schriever 2020-04-08 09:43

    Evidently transplanted Northern European time is more laughable.

  2. grudznick 2020-04-08 11:12

    Bernie bows out due to unspoken fear of the COVIDs. This is very good, because now grudznick has hope Mr. Biden can get some real traction as one who is not insaner than most.

  3. Debbo 2020-04-09 00:06

    Good point, Richard.

  4. grudznick 2020-04-09 16:39

    Should have locked down the borders before the Covidiots got in.

Comments are closed.