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Guest Column: South Dakota Becomes Numb to Death Amidst Pandemic

South Dakota doesn’t feel much like a pro-life state, says Travis Lee Kriens of Mitchell:

Among the saddest things when it comes to the coronavirus is the way we have disregarded the health of our elderly population.

They are the most vulnerable and most likely to die once infected with COVID.

Eight out of 10 COVID-19 deaths reported in the U.S. have been in adults 65 years and older, according to the CDC.

These are our parents, grandparents, war veterans.

The father of a family friend died on October 8, at a nursing home in southeast South Dakota that is overwhelmed with COVID patients. A Korean War veteran, a Purple Heart recipient in his early 90’s. All it can do is make you feel sad and hopeless, like there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

He lives nearly 100 years and his life is taken early because we’ve decided we’re too selfish to wear a mask in public or take the necessary precautions. Shameful.

Seven months into this pandemic and the numbers are as high as ever. After several weeks of leading the nation in new COVID cases per capita, North Dakota has now been passed by South Dakota, as of October 8. We’re number 1.

It’s very irritating to be continually told by those in leadership positions in South Dakota and the rest of the country that they are following the science and data when it comes to COVID, when they are clearly not.

It is also maddening to be told by those same failed leaders to “stay safe and take extra precautions. Together, we’ll get through this,” as the dead bodies continue to pile up.

On Thursday, October 8, South Dakota reported 536 new cases. That put active cases at an all-time record 4,673. Fourteen more dead as the death toll increased to 272.

When will it end? Not any time soon, as long as we continue our current path.

When will people start to care? When did we become so numb to death?

—Travis Lee Kriens, letter to the editor, Dakota Free Press, 2020.10.08

24 Comments

  1. mike from iowa 2020-10-09 08:24

    Wasn’t many moons ago wingnuts were exhorting the elderly to die to save the economy for their grandkids. Wingnuts still want to strip Americans of SS and Medicare so more people of all ages will die because the government can only help the affluent.

    https://thebulwark.com/the-let-the-elderly-die-chorus/

  2. jerry 2020-10-09 08:33

    Numb and dumb as the federal government has cut 60% of the trump virus federal workers that were there to combat the virus. They say their work is “completed” so us sheep in the wasteland will just suck it up and die while our school’s close, county’s go even further in the hole to make our quality of life die with us.

    “The federal government has dramatically slashed the number of employees it has deployed to combat the novel coronavirus pandemic, with the leading agency in charge of those efforts saying it has scaled back as it has “completed” work.

    At the peak of pandemic response efforts, the Trump administration had deployed more than 50,000 federal employees around the country for various initiatives and projects, according to a Health and Human Services Department spokesperson. That number dropped to fewer than 20,000 as of Sept. 28, according to an updated count from the Department of Homeland Security, marking a decline of more than 60%.”https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2020/10/trump-administration-has-cut-number-federal-personnel-deployed-covid-19-fight-60/169137/

    So, why wouldn’t GNOem see this is as her getaway free card and just say to hell with South Dakota to move on to bigger fish to fry? GNOem is a grifter, just like Vladimir Thune that stand to make millions in taxpayer money to sell their souls like hookers to the highest bidder.

  3. Donald Pay 2020-10-09 08:46

    What Mr. Kriens describes is what many other socities have experienced during a collapse. America is in serious decline under poor leadership and our own lack of social responsibility. It happens over time as humans act like gazelles as lions pick off one after another and no one in the herd cares. I provide the link again to this interesting analysis of our current situation.

    https://gen.medium.com/i-lived-through-collapse-america-is-already-there-ba1e4b54c5fc

  4. bearcreekbat 2020-10-09 09:50

    I recall only a few years ago the conservative rallying cry against “Obamacare” led by Sarah Palin:

    . . . “The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society.’ ”

    Conservative op-ed pages were on board. Talk radio, too. On his syndicated national radio program, Rush Limbaugh said of Palin, “She’s dead right.”

    The specter of “death panels” became an instant rallying cry for the still-new Tea Party movement, whose supporters crowded into town hall meetings that summer and shouted down Democratic lawmakers considering support for the Affordable Care Act.

    Republican members of Congress tapped into that anger. U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley told a crowd back home in Iowa, “We should not have a government program that determines you’re gonna pull the plug on Grandma.”. . .

    https://www.npr.org/2017/01/10/509164679/from-the-start-obama-struggled-with-fallout-from-a-kind-of-fake-news

    Today, under Trumpist politicians and their so-called conservative supporters the story has made a 180 degree about face. Our elderly and young people with susceptibility to COVID fatal complications have become the new de facto sacrificial lamb for conservatives as an acceptable price to pay for the “freedom” not to wear masks or socially distance. The conservative “right to life” mantra and claim to value the lives of our parents and grandparents has been brought into the light and exposed as nothing more than just another self-serving cynical lie just like the other lies that have now become such an ubiquitous part of our everyday due to Trump and his cult members.

    ‘Tsunami of untruths’: Trump has made 20,000 false or misleading claims – report

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/13/donald-trump-20000-false-or-misleading-claims

  5. Eve Fisher 2020-10-09 10:17

    bearcreekbat, you’re absolutely right. Every time I hear how we all “need to learn to live with the virus” – i.e., die quickly and quietly, I think of those death panels Palin had a fit about. What happened? Well, we’re in the middle of a Jim Jones death cult, and the true believers REALLY want us to drink that koolade.

  6. sx123 2020-10-09 10:20

    Over half of residents at Selby care center are positive per walworth county care center facebook post yesterday. Not good.

  7. jerry 2020-10-09 11:19

    sx123, it’s gonna get a lot worse. Expect 2,900 deaths each day from the trump virus, how numb do you think that will continue to make us? How can anyone in their right mind continue to think trump will do anything other than laugh all the way to the bank? Why vote for death?

    “The U.S. is averaging more than 45,000 new COVID-19 positive tests a day, up 8% from the previous week and more than double what the country was seeing in June, the CDC reports, as lockdown restrictions were easing.

    It’s a case count experts warn is far too high ahead of what’s forecast to be a challenging — and deadly — winter season. The latest U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ensemble forecast says U.S. virus deaths could reach 233,000 by the end of this month.

    And projections from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation show more than 2,900 Americans could be dying daily by January.” Rapid City Journal 10.9.2020

    Republican governance is bringing us the US to her knees. Time for change, Vote Blue. If you haven’t done so yet, there is early voting at the courthouse. Get’r done kiddos, rid ourselves of the plague. While you’re at it, vote for Dan Ahlers too!!

  8. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2020-10-09 12:13

    Bearcreekbat aptly hearkens back to the Palin-shouting about death panels. Conservatives will cry death-wolf over policies they don’t like, but they will tacitly accept unnecessary death caused by their failure to enact practical, effective policies and basic neighborly practices.

  9. mike from iowa 2020-10-09 13:19

    We should not have a government program that determines you’re gonna pull the plug on Grandma.”. . .

    Grassley, McCturtlefasrtface and drumpf have stacked the courts with extreme right wing nut job ideologues who will do that job for them.

    New ad I saw today has a former NFL player/black business man praising drumpf for how he brought black unemployment down to historic lows. Didn’t elaborate on Obama’s 8 years of bringing the unemployment rate down.

    Like everything in drumpf’s life he gets/takes credit for other’s work.

    ps my mail in ballot went in yesterday and all races where parties were listed were marked for the Dems.

  10. Loren 2020-10-09 14:24

    Just watched a news clip with interviews of Trump supporters. The misinformation was rampant. Could NOT tell them the information they had was bogus, even with supporting facts. Facts no longer mean anything to a Republican. I don’t hold Trump responsible because he is a “effing moron” according to those that know. No, I hold Thune and Rounds responsible. They could have done something and intentionally chose to look the other way! This is modern day South Dakota? !@#%^&*

  11. Nix 2020-10-09 15:50

    Travis
    Thanks for those words. I am 67 yrs.
    old and have had people I know pass from Covid complications.
    My 93 year old mother is in a care facility in Iowa.
    New cases of Covid among the staff this week.
    Hope and Pray.
    Everyone please remember to mask up and be careful, there are Human Beings out there.

  12. leslie 2020-10-09 18:56

    746 all time high RC positive infections today on local news.

  13. leslie 2020-10-09 19:00

    Sorry, SD, not just RC.

  14. Mike Livingston 2020-10-09 20:43

    The Lt.Gov of the Lone star state considers the state of the Stock Market is something Grandma and Grampa are willing be euthanized for, so they can die alone at the Trails End minimum security care home. My apologies for acting like a republican! Here is a link to the point I am trying to make.
    https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=texas lieutenant governor&docid=608019029698152456&mid=4F8966A20233A16690DC4F8966A20233A16690DC&view=detail&FORM=VIRE

  15. Mike Livingston 2020-10-09 20:50

    Follow-up, kudos to the contributor: Travis Lee Krien

  16. Debbo 2020-10-09 21:45

    “2,900 Americans could be dying daily by January.”

    😳 😳 Oh. My. Gawd. 😥 😥 😥 😥 😥

    So many gramas and grampas. 😥 😥

  17. jerry 2020-10-09 22:31

    Rum dumb numb, typical trumpian follower. Too damn dumb to know that they are being slaughtered like livestock on the kill floor. The New England Journal of Medicine has this to say.

    “Covid-19 has created a crisis throughout the world. This crisis has produced a test of leadership. With no good options to combat a novel pathogen, countries were forced to make hard choices about how to respond. Here in the United States, our leaders have failed that test. They have taken a crisis and turned it into a tragedy.

    The magnitude of this failure is astonishing. According to the Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering,1 the United States leads the world in Covid-19 cases and in deaths due to the disease, far exceeding the numbers in much larger countries, such as China. The death rate in this country is more than double that of Canada, exceeds that of Japan, a country with a vulnerable and elderly population, by a factor of almost 50, and even dwarfs the rates in lower-middle-income countries, such as Vietnam, by a factor of almost 2000. Covid-19 is an overwhelming challenge, and many factors contribute to its severity. But the one we can control is how we behave. And in the United States we have consistently behaved poorly.” https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2029812?query=featured_home

  18. Mike Livingston 2020-10-09 23:55

    Yo Jerry You are absolutely right about our leaders, but everyone that loves these United States has to do their part, If you see injustice, or read or hear about a conspiracy, do your patriotic duty and make sure that what you see represents a threat to our democracy and well being, If it does, seek a peaceful resolution.
    Our so-called representatives have failed us but we have to figure out a way to make ourselves read and listened to but we must find a peaceful yet forceful communication mechanism.
    I have been reticent to speak up out of fear and I am still fearful, However it has dawned on me that the consequence of doing nada is far too large a price to pay. Love yourself and VOTE.

  19. Mike Livingston 2020-10-10 01:08

    Followed up on the link I posted and discovered it did not direct the way I intended, Apologies for my mistake, search Texas Lt. Gov and you will get the picture. Vote

  20. John Dale 2020-10-10 21:41

    If President Trump wins this election and the pandemic subsides with dubious PCR testing false positives, will the public be so quick to forget how this era was managed by the Democrat party?

    Like, why no news about the patriot shot in the face in Denver today?

    Condemnation of violence?

    Promotion of love and peace?

    What happened?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_jWHffIx5E

  21. Mike Livingston 2020-10-11 04:05

    If you hang out in mom’s basement in camo fatigues cleaning your AR and watching Fox news you must be a trump supporter. huh john?

  22. jerry 2020-10-11 08:48

    Mr. Livingston, you forgot mumbling to yourself in the description. After reading some of his stuff, you can tell he is a mutterer.

  23. mike from iowa 2020-10-11 09:24

    Denver corpse was spraying mace at a security guard (not hired by antifa) who was a Pinkerton hire by news station to protect newspeople/photogs on the ground. He was shot and killed and immediately right wingers blamed antifa and posted a false narrative about who the shooter was and who hired him.

    Wingnuts are all sounding delusional, like drumpf.

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