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Tourism Dept. Survey: 80.6% Say “Wear Face Masks in Public”

Governor Kristi Noem’s own health experts are rejecting her advice not to wear masks; so, it appears, are a big majority of people surveyed by our Department of Tourism’s expensive consultants:

SD Dept. of Tourism, Covid-19 Weekly Update, 2020.07.31.
SD Dept. of Tourism, Covid-19 Weekly Update, 2020.07.31.

80.6% of Americans think you should wear a mask in public, Kristi. That’s not the media being negative; that’s voters surveyed by your own tax dollars (or at least the tax dollars Washington sent you) telling you we should all do our part to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

13 Comments

  1. Roger Elgersma 2020-08-07 08:52

    At first Kristi was telling people to be responsible on their own without government making rules in a problem which is where government should make a difference. Now that the public is getting responsible while the pandemic is coming here, she tells them not to be responsible by not wearing a mask. I am not sure how her mind works. At first she assumed that all of South Dakota was a farm or ranch and so did not want closing down because farms do not need to shut down. She did not realize that Sioux Falls is not a ranch so Smithfield had the worst packing plant coronavirus outbreak in the country for lack of government when government was needed. At the very beginning she was talking about that there was no social spread and that she was following the science, when the science said there would be social spread. So now we have lots of social spread and she decided that no face masks would be ok. unbelievable.

  2. Brenda Moss 2020-08-07 11:20

    I noticed that the mask data have been omitted from the 8/6/2020 tourism survey.

  3. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2020-08-07 12:17

    Good eye, Brenda! Tourism just posted that Aug 6 update this morning. Indeed, this update doesn’t show mask sentiment, but it does show that the number of people saying they don’t plan to travel this fall has risen to 40% (up from around 17% on April 5). 54% of respondents say they expect the pandemic to get worse in the next month; only 16% say the expect it to get better. No wonder Governor Noem is trying to countermessage with “Optimism!”

  4. jerry 2020-08-07 15:10

    Mr.Elgersma, your post nails the sordid history completely. One thing Tinker Belle GNOem thinks she has found is the blowing of pixie dust out of her arse that she spreads changing the narrative by the minute. She bungled this trump virus from the beginning and she has killed dozens of South Dakotan’s because of her failures along with sickening thousands.

  5. Jake 2020-08-07 15:43

    Thank the Good Lord that New York had Governor Cuomo at the helm and not someone like Kristi N.
    Or the guv of Texas or Florida. Only thing that has kept her tail-feathers attached so far is that SD has such little far-flung population/square mile. But, she HAS neglected some of the most needy on the reservations. Speaking with an Iowa PA in the thick of that state’s Covid 19 infection in the state’s largest medical institute I find that they are STILL re-using PPE for the health care workers amid Trump’s claims that all the states are so well-stocked. Well, they aren’t. Iowa’s governor drinks the same kool-aid as ours.

  6. Debbo 2020-08-07 17:55

    The University of Washington has projected just how many South Dakotans Kruel Kristi will have killed by the end of 2020. They’ve also gamed out what tactics work and why or why not.

    “IHME’s team estimates that when officials make masks mandatory, use increases by 8 percentage points. And when the mandates include penalties, there’s a 15 percentage point bump.”

    If Kruel Kristi required masks with a fine for not wearing one, she would be heroic because she would cut the state’s death rate IN HALF! (Yes, I shouted that because it’s so critical, life and death critical.)

    NPR has the story. https://flip.it/knqGmM

    BTW, they predict the 12/31/2020 USA death toll will be 300,00.

  7. John 2020-08-07 19:52

    Apparently NOem fell off a horse one too many times.

  8. John 2020-08-07 19:58

    In Germany, travelers who return home from risk countries are forced to take a Covid test. If they refuse, they are fined up to 25,000 euro. Wild times. But great leadership.
    — #nomercynomalice reader in Germany
    From Scott Galloway

  9. mike from iowa 2020-08-08 08:21

    We gots us some covid craving crazies in NW iowa, about 40 miles NE from little old me.

    https://www.vox.com/2020/8/8/21357625/covid-19-iowa-lakes-okoboji-kim-reynolds-masks

    Dickinson county is 96% wasicus, 79% wingnuts and looks like it could be a covid hotspot from the shear number of bodies tootling along the beaches and lakes.

    The locals apparently don’t need no stinking masks or a gubmint telling them what to do.

  10. jerry 2020-08-08 10:07

    Great link mfi! I always like the one about it’s gwaaad’s will. That may be the case but what about my will? We have no solidarity in this country and the rest of the world now knows it as a sign of weakness. America has gotten too fat on its own hubris and is ripe for the pickings. I don’t see many, if any out there, to defend it either. Guess that’s why we want drone’s so badly…until they turn on you.

  11. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2020-08-08 13:32

    Mike, that’s an awfully disturbing article about Lake Okoboji and the profits-over-public-health attitude there:

    At the state level, Gov. Reynolds never instituted a statewide lockdown and recommended closing most businesses for only a little over a month. This meant some local business owners felt entitled to actively try to impede public health measures, including calling the hospital and demanding them to stop putting educational videos on Facebook because it was hurting business [Emily Mendenhall (a medical anthropologist!), “How an Iowa Summer Resort Region Became a Covid-19 Hot Spot,” Vox, 2020.08.08].

    …as well as the negative impact a Governor can have by being stupid:

    When I asked people what they have taken away from these leaders’ actions (and inactions), most say that because there was never a state lockdown and the state is open, there is no need to wear masks. This sentiment is perpetuated from the top and embodied in local behavior: The pandemic is over. Now you’re on your own [Mendenhall, 2020.08.08].

    The people Jerry rightly reviles in Mendenhall’s article for saying it’s all God’s will are pretty cavalier about other people’s lives. I’d rather their callous God not take my loved ones because those yahoos think they don’t have to take public health precautions. A fundagelical’s belief that they should make it easier for viruses to spread and do God’s work encroaches in the rights of others whose religion does not dictate such passivity in the face of earthly dangers.

  12. mike from iowa 2020-08-08 15:33

    iowa’s Great Lakes region is a good example of imaginary religious freedumb gone wild. Wingnuts imagine they have the right to endanger others as long as drumpf is in the kremlin annex.

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