South Dakota really did flatten its coroanvirus curve after the big meatpacking-related spikes in April and May. But as the flow of Trumpist hogwash and bad examples from Governor Kristi Noem has increased, so has our case count:
With yesterday’s summer-high 156 new cases, our seven-day average is up to 96.
As is often the case, South Dakota appears to be behind the national curve, which started climbing in June to a pandemic high mid-July of new cases but has actually been declining this month:
Don’t cheer too loudly: the national seven-day average for daily new cases of coronavirus is still 33% higher than it was during the April surge, when we saw fit to close all of our schools. South Dakota is one of just ten states or territories where new cases are currently increasing.
Dakota free press just report events. Don’t need your biased liberal spin on the news!
The WHOLE point was the flatten the curve so hospitals and medical providers could plan and prepare. We did that, way… longer than asked. We have to move on and live life or a destroyed economy will kill more. You don’t get both ways Mr. Hypocrite. That’s all liberals are. Total and utter BS. And look at Sweden for crying out loud. Never even close to the deaths NY had. This was just asinine. All to affect the election because everything else didn’t work.
No, I’m not denying the virus. I’m tired of the crap out of your mouths.
With Steve, Trump and other Republicans waving the white flag of surrender, the coronovirus and China are winning. The US has proved to be a failing society, unable to muster the self-discipline and social cohesion necessary to handle basic public health. China will come out of this much stronger; the US, much weaker. We have Trump to thank for this.
Steve is typical QANON or what the trumpian republican party has morphed into. Indeed, look at Sweden, but also look at Vietnam. We don’t need to flatten the curve we need to squash the disease.
For that matter, look at New Zealand, which makes Sweden look like an absolute slaughterhouse (and compared to its neighbors Norway, Finland and Denmark, it IS). Look, with 880,000 in our entire state, we should have been able to crush the disease – but we didn’t. Instead, right now, we’re 8th out of the top 10 states for increasing cases in the US.
(https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html)
Also, still trying to figure out how anyone can believe that the entire world colluded together to create, disseminate, and die from a hoax designed to deny Trump reelection.
Steve, I can’t believe the blinders you have put on! Have you been drinking Trump’s bleach remedy?
Would you have science and medicine treat the flu the same? Yes, the flu has killed many thousands and will kill more, but it doesn’t mean that we wish it away or wave it off like Trump has! Where is all the PPE he keeps saying is out there in abundance? Hasn’t his lies turned your stomach yet?
Meanwhile, TenHaken’s comments of 17 August 2020 are concerning, if not disconcerting:
““The more people who get COVID, just to be blunt, the closer we move towards herd. The more people who get it without the getting the severe effects of needing hospitalization, the closer we get to less spread in our community, because more people will have had it,” TenHaken said.
While the percent positive rates in the Sioux Falls area have been increasing since late July and the weekly rate was 12% as of Aug. 17, TenHaken said there has not been a corresponding increase in hospitalization rates.”
https://www.keloland.com/keloland-com-original/herd-approach-for-sioux-falls-tenhaken-addresses-covid-19-situation/
Way longer than asked? False: health officials not working for Kristi Noem are saying we’ve got to keep up our preventative efforts, but lots of people are plowing heedlessly ahead.
And because of our heedless haste, the case curve is up in South Dakota. That’s unpleasant to those who want their prejudices and Trump-love affirmed, but it’s true.
With regard to “herd immunity,” TenHaken needs take note:
“Authorities predicted that 40% of the people in Stockholm would get the disease and develop protective antibodies by May. The actual prevalence, however, was around 15%, according to the study published Aug. 11 in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.”
https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200813/swedens-no-lockdown-policy-didnt-achieve-herd-immunity
Mfi: 159 SD positives yesterday. Ave 100 per day, up from 50 something in July.
Fascist Trump’s fascist administration and the fascist GOP: (McConnell-“ok, despite $25B ask by USPS, Republicans say $10B”.)
Marilyn, what was the “liberal spin” in the original post by Cory?
Steve, I in most part agree with the thought for needing to flatten the curve was not to shelter from any exposure. However, here is my concern: if SD is is a spike now (and I see the only SD and Hawaii are on a spike trend), does that give us the room to open schools at this moment? Even if the goal is not zero infections, are we ready to introduce the most efficient factories for spreading disease – schools – into the curve? I would hope you agree that we have to take some precautions to keep a curve we can deal with, so what is reasonable in the context of mass school openings at this point?
Steve, you are correct in the initial plan. But plans have to evolve to meet peoples needs.
Have you ever watched the early episode of a TV show and think of how different the show was in the beginning. It’s because the initial show concept changed, based upon viewer reaction. Sometimes an incidental character in the pilot episode becomes one of the shows starts.
Think of a business you remember from the opening day. Now think about how that business changed over the years. Menus, services, products for sale, all change based upon what sells or what people demand.
The same is true with the Covid-19 plan; that is the plan must change to meet the peoples needs and/or desires. People are not returning to stores or restaurants. There are still restaurants that have not reopened their lobbies or dining areas. There are still professional offices that are locked up and only open by appointment. If this idea of “flattening the curve to help hospital capacity” was your business, it would be locked up by now. The Covid-19 virus must be contained to the point people feel comfortable. Until then all that is happening is the devastation is dragging on longer than necessary.
No, I’m not denying the virus. I’m tired of the crap out of your mouths.
Speaking only for myself, don’t let the door hit ya where the one god split ya. Hit the road, Jack. Never darken our doorstep again. Go tilt at someone else’s windmills. Get thee,Satan, behind me.
As discussed in a neighboring Tsitrian blog “160 year anniversary,”* the history of significant “local” warfare over theft of treaty land colonizing Lakota/Dakota/Nakota and Cheyenne dateline:
1851 Horse Creek Treaty. Ft Laramie area (NE)
1854 Grattan “massacre” Ft Laramie WY area
1855 Bluewater Creek Massacre. Near Ashe Hollow, Lewellyn NE
1862 Minnesota “outbreak”*
1864 Sand Creek massacre Chivington CO
1864 Killdeer Mountain/Badlands ND fights
1866 Fetterman “massacre”, near Ft Laramie area
1867 Abandonment and burning of Ft Phil Kearney WY
1868 Ft Laramie treaty
1876 Greasy Grass fight 7th Calvary, Hardin MT
1876 “1st scalp for Custer” by Wm Cody, War Bonnet Creek SD
1876 Attack on American Horse, Slim Buttes SD
1877 Powder River attack on Dull Knife, Big Horn Mtns WY
1877 Tongue River MT attack on Crazy Horse
1877 Nez Perce fights from ID to Ft Belnap MT
1878 Cheyenne outbreak, OK
1878 Dull Knife capture and outbreak, Ft Robinson NE
1879 Little Wolf escape/ establish reservation Lame Deer MT
1880 Sitting Bull return from Canada
1890 Murder of Sitting Bull, Bullhead SD
1890 Wounded Knee massacre by 7th Calvary
WHO says a state should have a testing-positivity rate below 5% for 14 days before reopening. South Dakota’s test-pos rate has averaged 8.5% over the last 14 days.
I just read that 3,004 of Sioux Falls school district 24,000 students have now opted for the virtual academy. That is over 12% of students. If you assume a family has 2 kids (some may not yet be in school and other already graduated), you are in the range of 1 in 5 families are not feeling safe sending their kids to school.
Then consider that South Dakota has a very high percentage of both parents working outside of the home. I thought we lead the nation in this category in recent years. One has to wonder what the number of virtual academy enrollment would be if their was a parent that could stay home and supervise their kids?
Bottom line, people are scared. Its not getting better. Earlier this month only 1000 students had enrolled in the virtual academy.
So Noem on her visit to Sioux Falls must not have been listening, or only heard what she wanted to hear. People are not buying into what she is saying anymore.
I don’t remember that flattening the curve was for a certain period of time as Steve claims; ‘way longer than asked’. I thought it was based upon the rate of new cases or rate of spread or some other scientific measure not based upon a date on the calendar. We are taking longer to achieve the goals of stopping the pandemic so we need to shut down certain activities longer.
All this is based upon what we know and that seems to change as we learn more, god help us if it mutates. So that being said onto the economy. It appears the Federal Reserve is pouring money into the economy through banks. I believe a government should be certain that the economy doesn’t collapse, yet the elected side of government doesn’t believe that families are worthy of being subsidized directly through income payments. People will be less stressed, less afraid, less violent when the financial strain is relieved.
Indeed, it is all about milking the herding of the immunity forward, Mr. Schaffer. We must keep pushing the sickness through the inevitable maw of the population, while not flooding the hospitals. It almost seems and grudznick is surprised there are not people calling for more motor cycle rallyings and other big young people band shows to spread it a bit more intentionally, the get the herd moving faster. We do have many available beds for those who succumb to the hideous covid bugs. grudznick is serious here. Do we drag this out 3 years, or do we squeeze it along for a year or so and get the same amount of toothpaste out of the tube…because it is all coming out at some point. We just don’t want to pop the tube and make a mess.
And yes, as a scientist I have read all the science.
Mr. Scott, people are indeed scared. grudznick is scared, too. But we cannot hunker in our bunkers forever, and we must squeeze the tube of toothpaste out the nozzle at the fastest pace that we can without clogging the drain.
grudsnick,
I am willing to believe the medical and scientific community. These people may not be perfect, but it is better than the hunches that some people are following.
If I’m sick I want a trained doctor caring for me, not somebody who has a hunch of how to cure me?
It seems to me that the scientific thought behind shutdowns was to achieve a goal similar to New Zealand’s. I don’t mean that a nation as large as the USA was expected to hit zero infections like NZ did, but that if we had rigorously followed the shutdown protocols we could have drastically reduced the number of infections. Infections would have been isolated to limited places, contacts traced and similarly isolated.
If Medical Moron had responsibly led, followed science, promoted handwashing, masks, etc, the number of infections by now would have allowed schools to open in the classrooms, limited sports, concerts and other events, and businesses operating near capacity. IOW, life near normal.
The fact that we are in the predicament we are in is entirely due to Stupid Psycho’s ineptitude. It is all his responsibility. He is at fault along with the entire GOP and lying right wing propaganda outlets.
You guys don’t get to rewrite the history here, which is well settled. The initial purported reason of the lockdown was to flatten the curve so that healthcare facilities would not be overrun — so we wouldn’t run out of ventilators, and so we wouldn’t have to reach a point where people with life threatening issues would have to be turned away.
Now 6 months later, none of these fears have materialized except for in a couple of major metropolitan areas, and even there none of the doomsday scenarios have occurred. We’ve flattened the curve so extensively that many hospitals will have to declare bankruptcy. In SD, we haven’t been anywhere close to capacity for medial resources — only a small fraction of ICU beds and ventilators are being used by Covid patients. In short, the curve is plenty flat to accomplish the original objective — in SD for sure, but for the most part nationwide as well.
But no, at some point the objective changed, from “lockdown to ensure hospital capacity,” to “lockdown until there’s a cure.” Guess what? There isn’t going to be a cure. At best we’re going to get a vaccine that’s around 40% effective. What then? Lockdown forever?
Neal, I don’t see where my comment is at odds with yours.
If we had truly joined together to “flatten the curve” as most other nations did, we would have achieved what I referenced. Instead, our limited and leader inhibited effort left us with a high per capita mortality rate and organ damage, including hearts, in people of all ages who have “recovered.”
Whatever you choose to call the complete lack of planning and support from the White House and Pierre’s Fenced Fotress, the results of that ineptitude have been deadly.
No one is rewriting history, Neal. We flattened the curve to protect lives and hospitals. The Imperial College paper I read and reported in March said we’d have to do a series of rolling lockdowns until we get a vaccine. When the curve bounces up again (as it appears to be starting to do now), we’ll need to shut things down again, back and forth, until science prevails.
In the meantime, wash your hands, wear a mask and practice social distancing so that hospitals are not overwhelmed, our neighbors and ourselves are as protected as we can while we wait for a vaccine that will keep improving. Geesh, not rocket science look at how China does it, or South Korea or Taiwan. Yes, look to Asia as they have been dealing with Sars for decades. Why do we have to be so damn dumb?
Latest research news has it that “natural immunity” for those preciously infected only lasts in the neighborhood of 4 months. Then reinfection can occur. “Our findings raise concern that humoral immunity against SARS-CoV-2 may not be long lasting in persons with mild illness, who compose the majority of persons with Covid-19.” https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2025179
Oh, and take a listen to Michelle from last night. Beautiful and strong words that not only go against trump, but also against his minion, EB5 Short Rounds and his lack of clarity regarding this trump virus. https://www.pscp.tv/w/1jMJgXYvYqAxL
News alert today says iowa Department of Public Health has a backdating glitch in their covid reporting numbers that keep real time positive rates well below actual numbers.
I got this on a news alert, but, couldn’t link to actual article. Be curious to find out ow badly the numbers are skewed.
This is the link for the above post….
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/512398-iowa-nurse-uncovers-error-on-state-coronavirus-database-that-lowered
Look what’s happening in New Zealand now. Defeated the covid bugs, they did not. It’s all about getting all the toothpaste out of the tube while having a few people die as possible. That is what we do every day with speeding laws, too, balancing the freedom, desire, and need to drive places. We don’t shut down all cars because some people die. South Dakota would be a very safe driving place indeed if we had a 5mph speed limit on the interstates, but the legislatures decided we should go 80. And if you let the fellows like Mr. Haugaard decide how fast the toothpaste was to be squirted out of the tube he would have you attending mandatory church services with no social distancing, with a pastor pounding the pulpit and spittle flying across the assembled congregants with big fans behind him to direct it all the way to the back.
Unlike Noem Nothing and Grudzilla, New Zealand took scientific measures and reduced covid to 0 new cases for 102 days. The new cases, topped at 69 are all related to a single family and the country was immediately locked down again.
Wingnuts whine About their rights and their white privilege seems to make them feel superior to all others. Guess again. The pendulum will swing the other way and you will be whining about total oppression because iof your rights abuses. Serves you right, haters.
Leslie, thanks for post of Native American abuses by our gov’t. Quite a synopsis, isn’t it?