Brown County saw nine new confirmed cases of coronavirus Saturday, eight Sunday, six Monday, six Tuesday, and five today. Given that the three previous weeks saw no more than two new cases each day, Brown County’s 14-day trajectory is still pointing upward, just as it was a few days ago:
Councilman Dennis “Mike” Olson expressed concern about that rising trajectory at Monday night’s City Council meeting:
On Monday, Councilman Dennis “Mike” Olson asked if the council should take into consideration the new cases announced during the weekend. He said protocol released by Gov. Kristi Noem recommended easing guidelines after 14 days of a decline in positive COVID-19 tests.
“My information says case numbers increased by 17 this weekend,” Olson said. “Should we give this some consideration?” [Elisa Sand, “No Changes Made to Aberdeen’s COVID-19 Ordinance,” Aberdeen American News, 2020.05.05]
Mayor Travis Schaunaman, who is working to boot Olson off the council, told Olson to chill out:
Mayor Travis Schaunaman said the increase is a result of broader testing criteria. Some of the tests would not have been given under normal circumstances, he said.
“And so that exacerbates the appearance of an increase, instead it’s just the result of adding more testing,” Schaunaman said [Sand, 2020.05.05].
Councilman David Bunsness asked for Mayor Schaunaman for more data and, according to Sand, just got a repeat assertion.
I would humbly suggest that we can’t dismiss an increase in confirmed cases as a mere artifact of increased testing. Sure, it’s perfectly logical that testing more people should find more cases. It’s entirely logical that increased testing among a particularly susceptible population, like the Demkota Beef and Smithfield workers whom Sadist-in-Chief Donald Trump is willing to order to their deaths to sate his burger and wiener cravings, could result in higher confirmed case numbers. But it’s just as logical that our failure to make testing more widely available produced the low number of daily cases last week that induced the Aberdeen City Council to relax its coronavirus restrictions. Increased testing may show that coronavirus is more widespread than we thought and requires stiffer public policy responses.
Absent rigorously randomized, widespread, and repeated testing and solid epidemiological criteria for extrapolating those testing results to the general population, we need to work with the data we have… which in this case are the straight daily new case counts. Those counts are up this week; our guard should remain up, too.
Not waiting for Mayor Schaunaman to present his scientific data, the Aberdeen Area Arts Council decided today to cancel Arts in the Park, which was scheduled for June 20–21. The City of Aberdeen is still opening Storybook Land on Friday and plans to open the rides, gift shop, and concessions on May 22, with Aberdeen Parks and Rec noting that it does not sanitize displays or equipment.
Related Science: Last week South Dakota had one of the better Rt values in the nation. That’s the effective spread rate, the average number of people whom person with coronavirus will make sick. Our Rt remains below 1.0, at 0.96, which means that if we kept all conditions stable and kept staying home and not sneezing on each other, the disease would slowly peter out. But other states are settling down at lower effective spread rates. Our Rt of 0.96 is the ninth-highest in the nation; 23 states, including Colorado, New Jersey, Florida, California, New York, and Michigan, have gotten Rt down below 0.9.
Thanks for quoting what the mayor said. It’s clear that he was talking out of his nether region. Think for a minute about what this idiot actually said.
” Mayor Travis Schaunaman said the increase is a result of broader testing criteria. Some of the tests would not have been given under normal circumstances, he said.
“And so that exacerbates the appearance of an increase, instead it’s just the result of adding more testing,” Schaunaman said” Duh, is this the best Aberdeen could do for a major? This guy is clearly the town Stooge, or a close second to Moe Howard…er Al Novstrup. The slapstick never ends in Aberdeen…even while you’re getting sicker and sicker. The mayor, one of the Three Stooges, though proves the point of more Testing. We have $1.25 Billion bucks for those kinds of supplies, let’s use them in Aberdeen and statewide.
Mr. H, can you confirm for we who blog on your site that you do not have the covid bugs, and that your fellow Aberdeenites who see you about town in the eateries you frequent and Trader Joe’s there that you are not smitten with the bugs?
Many Aberdeenites want to know.
We are not sheltering in place so that the pandemic passes us by (unless shelter until the cure becomes the new goal); this was all about flattening the curve — spreading out the infections over a longer time so that our healthcare system can deal with the number of patients needing care. At some point in time, we are going to come out of our holes, and Coronavirus will be there waiting for us. We want to eliminate the preventable deaths from those infected but unable to get care from an overburdened system.
All numerical data needs to always be put in context of hospital/health care capacity.
The mayor buys into the practice of eliminating the sources of verified facts and data when they come into conflict with bigotry and greed. Early in the pandemic, the Arizona governor brought academic experts in epidemiology and economics into an alliance to deal with the effects of COVID-19. When the data they assembled forecast some dire times for the state, he and his Trump collaborators abandoned the alliance.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/arizona-halts-partnership-with-experts-predicting-coronavirus-cases-would-continue-to-mount/2020/05/06/d7a97c46-8fc2-11ea-a9c0-73b93422d691_story.html
JUST DIE ALREAD 2020. EB5 Rounds/trump catchy re election slogan.
“GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) — The Trump administration has shelved a document created by the nation’s top disease investigators with step-by-step advice to local authorities on how and when to reopen restaurants and other public places during the still-raging coronavirus outbreak.
The 17-page report by a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention team, titled “Guidance for Implementing the Opening Up America Again Framework,” was researched and written to help faith leaders, business owners, educators and state and local officials as they begin to reopen.” https://apnews.com/7a00d5fba3249e573d2ead4bd323a4d4
Smaller, local meat processing with local producers, need to come back. There is no point in a Demkota Beef or Smithfield. Buy local from local producers. Work on your culinary skills to eat at home. Same with flour, we used to buy it direct from the elevator.
JUST DIE ALREADY ROUNDS/trump 2020
One has to wonder if the mayor is more concerned about his advertising business, than about the people. I understand protecting what you have and built, but does that give you the right to put other peoples lives at risk?
From what I see around Aberdeen, people are getting very relaxed about the CDC guidelines. Others are telling me they see the same and are getting concerned.
Where is the church during this pandemic? The church seems to be silent. The church takes a stance on abortion and the death penalty, but remains silent on the pandemic.
Quoting the Sioux City SD mayor “When I got elected, people elected me. Not the owners of the casinos,” Frederickson said. “Some day, they got to weigh the gain of money against the cases that are out there, the lives.” This from: https://www.dakotanewsnow.com/content/news/North-Sioux-City-mayor-resigns-after-dispute-to-reopen-city-570239061.html
Many of the business that the cities restricted were what I would call frivolous. Tattoo shops, casinos, bars, pedicures, manicures, spas, salons, barbers, etc are examples of services we can do without during a pandemic. For the consumer or customer, look how much money was saved by not having these businesses open. Rather than drop a $20 or $50 at one of these places, send that money to a organization like the salvation army or feeding SD, to help those who are out of work.
I’m someone who was raised to respect live and respect/value our elders. That just does not seem to be what our world is about today. I sometimes wonder if this pandemic is a message to simplify our lives.
Covid-19 is still out there and it doesn’t appear to be going anywhere but up, fast….
Last updated: May 08, 2020, 22:47 GMT
United States
Coronavirus Cases:
1,319,434
Deaths:
78,505
17 new cases in Brown County yesterday, 14 today.