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Noem Speechifies on Another Planet, Ignores Pandemic at Home

Last updated on 2020-10-07

Can you hear me over the cognitive dissonance?

Gov. Kristi Noem said Monday that South Dakota has given the rest of the country an example of how to navigate through a pandemic without heavy-handed government mandates.

…Noem spoke as South Dakota came off its worse month yet during the pandemic. The state has consistently broken records in recent weeks related to the rate of new cases, active cases, hospitalizations and the number of people killed by the virus [Joe Sneve, “Noem to Lawmakers: South Dakota Shows Lockdowns Are Useless,” that Sioux Falls paper, reprinted in my local paywalled paper, 2020.10.05].

South Dakota is proving the opposite of what Kristi Noem is saying. A lot of people are alive today because lots of other places had the good sense to lock down:

Researchers from the University of California/Berkeley  (UC Berkeley) and Imperial College London  last week published studies in the scientific journal Nature looking into the question of how badly the coronavirus pandemic would have developed if governments had not adopted lockdown measures and social distancing rules.

Solomon Hsiang’s team from the Global Policy Laboratory  at UC Berkeley examined the situation in six major countries: China, South Korea, Italy, France, Iran and the United States. The conclusion: The emergency measures in all these countries had “significantly and substantially slowed” the pandemic.

In the peer-reviewed study,  the authors write that travel restrictions, company and school closures, curfews and other “non-pharmaceutical interventions,” such as masks and distancing rules, averted about 530 million infections altogether in the six countries.

Of those infections, however, only 62 million would probably have been registered as confirmed cases because the countries concerned had limited testing capacities. The research team based its observations on a period up to April 6 and examined 1,717 individual political measures.

Hsiang emphasized how helpful the willingness of each individual to make sacrifices in the coronavirus crisis had been: “The last several months have been extraordinarily difficult, but through our individual sacrifices, people everywhere have each contributed to one of humanity’s greatest collective achievements,” Hsiang said.

…The researchers calculated that by May 4, between 12 and 15 million people had become infected with SARS-CoV-2. This corresponds to between 3.2% and 4% of the respective populations of the countries studied. According to their calculations, 3.1 million lives were saved through various protective measures [Fabian Schmidt, “Coronavirus: Lockdowns Prevented the Worst, Researchers Say,” DW.com, 2020.06.16].

But that was spring. Now Kristi Noem is throwing that achievement away and pretending that pandemic suffering and death are inevitable—again, translate: not her fault!

Active coronavirus cases in South Dakota dropped today by 2%, but hospitalizations rose 4% to a new daily record of 250. Those 250 suffering South Dakotans might take heart from the White House’s maskless exhortation to not fear coronavirus… but none of those 250 South Dakotans have their own private med-evac helicopter, a two-dozen-person in-house medical team, or the best in government-run health care fully financed by the taxpayers.

But quit your griping and gasping, coronavirus patients! Be the example to America that Kristi wills you to be!

17 Comments

  1. Loren

    So, how’s dat personal responsibility thingy workin’ for ya? Pretty good, you betcha! Oh my Dog, we have our very own Sarah Palin! @#%^&*!

  2. Mike Livingston

    As if the human toll is not tragic enough, add to that the attack on the truth by the so-called leadership of our state and country.

  3. mike from iowa

    Listen up to this, wingnuts near and far….

    Trump’s Christian fundie supporters are going to be pretty surprised when they learn that Trump’s monoclonal antibody treatments came from fetal stem cells. How you feel about your president’s “murdered baby”-based drugs, Bible thumpers?

    Hate drumpf, yet, tools?

    ps not sure of the origin of this statement.

  4. leslie

    Noem must call Thune, Rounds and Johnson now and have Trump arrested now.

    H.R. McMaster, said something today [10.2.20] that is as shocking as it unsurprising.

    He said Trump is “aiding and abetting” Putin’s interference campaign.

    American intel agencies, that are supposed to be totally apolitical, have been folded into Trump’s campaign.

    They are keeping info about Russian interference hidden, and overhyping info about China and Iran “helping” Biden. [my emphasis]

    How did this happen?

    Chris Murphy [D, Sen CT]
    @ChrisMurphyCT
    ·
    Oct 1
    2/ Earlier this year, reports start coming into Congress about a giant, multi-layer Russian effort to help Trump in 2020. Bigger than what they did in 2016.***July 13, Dem leadership writes a letter to FBI Director Wray, asking for an all-Congress briefing [because congress members may be targeted.

    On July 24] Bill Evanina, Trump’s counter-intel chief, releases a super vague statement. 72 words on Chinese/Iranian interference, and 54 words on Russia.

    Very puzzling. Congress has never been briefed on any meaningful Chinese/Iranian interference plans.
    https://dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/item/2135-statement-by-ncsc-director-william-evanina-100-days-until-election-2020

    [On August 27] an update. This one has 219 words on China/Iran, 105 on Russia…China gets the lead and the most attention, Evanina just says they are “weigh[ing] the risks” of election interference – NOT that they are doing it.
    https://dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/item/2139-statement-by-ncsc-director-william-evanina-election-threat-update-for-the-american-public

  5. leslie

    cont…[On September 9] a bombshell that few noticed. The head of intelligence at DHS (the top guy!) files a whistleblower complaint. [i note these are the same criminals behind Bill Barr’s occoupation of Portland by camouflaged border federales using “hidden” tactics]

    [The whistleblower] says the White House instructed him to bury info on Russian interference because it “made the President look bad.”

    [A] day later (coincidence!), the Treasury Dept. sanctions Andriy Derkach, a Ukrainian politician in charge of spreading Biden conspiracy theories, and notes, offhand, that Derkach is indeed a Russian agent.[no FBI, DHS press conf.—just a buried santion notice. Would that too make el presidente’ look bad?

    Perhaps Dusty or John Thune know him?]

  6. Bob Newland

    SoDak up, you whiners! Don’t give in to the bat turd virus.

  7. jerry

    This guy didn’t give in Bob Newland, he showed that trump virus whats what man. Masks, who need them? Karma is funny like that.

    “The chairman of an Arkansas county Republican committee died from complications associated with COVID-19 on Tuesday—less than one month after his organization hosted a maskless gathering with other elected leaders.

    Steven Farmer, who served as the chairman of the Craighead County Republican Committee, died on Tuesday after a weeks-long battle with the coronavirus that resulted in a stay at the ICU and a ventilator, his daughter and the organization announced.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/steven-farmer-ak-republican-county-chair-dies-of-covid-19-weeks-after-committee-hosted-maskless-gathering?via=newsletter&source=DDAfternoon

    Old Senator dead eyes Tom the Cotton was there as well…

  8. Bob Newland

    I just posted this on FB:

    I once compared twitterpate45 to the Black Knight in that Monty Python movie. While it’s still a valid comparison, I’m now thinking the Black Knights are those who still want him to be their president.

    He’s had every companion of credibility sliced off his character. He’s now encouraging people to “dominate” the disease. I’ve heard people call talk shows and say “I know he loves and cares for us deeply.” I’ve heard people call talk shows saying medical experts in the United States are members of the “liberal media.”

    The Orange Knight lies in the field, stripped of any accoutrements of morality, empathy or soul. His people are on the edge of the field yelling, “Get up. Hit ’em again. They’re hurt. Finish ’em off!”

    He’s done. He knows it. It’s a long shot to send an ex-president to jail, but the twitterpate45 years have seen quite a few firsts. I think he’s right to worry about going to jail.

  9. jerry

    Good post Bob Newland. A few days ago, I ranted about the Catholics and the goofy bishop in Sioux Falls. Well, he is still an idiot and a dangerous one at that, but his boss in Rome, just tossed him an anvil, like he tossed Pompeo. The bishop will probably continue to be ignorant, but the rest of the Catholics are gonna be ahead of the dummy, if they are true to Rome.

    “But now this Catholic vote has got a whole lot more interesting. This weekend, Pope Francis travelled to Assisi to honour Saint Francis, the saint he most admires, for his dedication to the poor, and to sign his new encyclical. Encyclicals are the key teaching documents of popes in which they often focus on global issues, not just the internal concerns of the church. In 2015, Francis produced Laudato Si’, on the environment, where he put all his moral weight behind those advocating the need to take action against climate breakdown. This time round his new document, Fratelli Tutti, published on Sunday, describes a post-pandemic world, and the need for greater fraternity and solidarity. Its message means the pope has waded right into some of the key issues dominating the US presidential election.
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/06/pope-francis-encyclical-us-election-biden-trump-catholic-vote

  10. Mike Livingston

    When the basket-full of deplorable s elevated don skunk to be the apprentice prez they unleashed a rabid dog. When he loses the election and cries foul will queen kissy be a cheerleader calling for the proud boys and other white supremacist groups to take up arms?
    With kissy and the skunk shirking their responsibility’s to protect their constituents because they are too busy wallowing in their delusions of grandeur and lust for power. Where are the checks and balances? Will our killer AG take it up or maybe skunks personal lawyer/AG morbidly obese billy barr? What a country!

  11. Donald Pay

    Wisconsin’s recent surge came from Sturgis, reduced restrictions at bars/restaurants, opening of schools, particularly universities, and Republican legislative and judicial monkeywreching, which has interfered with reasonable health measures.

  12. jerry

    No Indians allowed in the white hospitals that claim to be full in South Dakota. We’ve come so far since the 1800’s here.

    “A small hospital serving the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe has sent two coronavirus patients to an out-of-state hospital in recent days, the tribe’s health department said Wednesday, even as South Dakota’s top health officials insist the state has plenty of hospital capacity for COVID-19 patients.

    The Cheyenne River Sioux Health Department reported that it tried to find better-equipped hospitals to transfer coronavirus patients, but that 14 facilities said that they were also diverting COVID-19 patients. Eventually, the tribal health department found a hospital in Burnsville, Minnesota, that would accept patients.

    Gov. Kristi Noem has made the state’s hospital capacity the bottom-line of her coronavirus response strategy.” Rapid City Journal 10.7.20

    Her bottom better get after her bottom-line or a feller might just think she’s lying… again.

  13. mike from iowa

    drumpf broke quarantine and was in Oval office today. Get him out of politics, wingnuts before he gets everyone sick and/or dead.

  14. jerry

    Kadoka School now hit with trump virus and closes for deep cleaning. This is all part of the GNOem bottom-line, gwwaad what a dud she is.

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