In a Wall Street Journal editorial yesterday, the WSJ dubbed South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem the “Vaccine Queen” for South Dakota’s preparedness and success in distributing the COVID-19 vaccine:
It’s maddening to watch politicians like Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D., N.Y.) delay needed Covid vaccinations with needless bureaucracy. For any citizens crying out that there has to be a better way, the good news is that a number of states have been moving quickly to get shots into arms. Recently this column noted the speed of vaccinations in West Virginia. Fortunately the Mountain State is not the only success story.
“South Dakota among leaders in COVID-19 inoculations,” notes a headline in the Sioux Falls Argus Leader. It seems that state leaders didn’t believe the media consensus that a rapid vaccine approval couldn’t happen. They were prepared for the possibility of success.
The entire article highlights good decision making vs. bad decision making.
The other untold story: Even without the vaccine, it appears SD might be close to herd immunity. While the rest of the nation is experiencing their second or third spike, SD’s cases, hospitalizations, and deaths began a slow decline in early November, did not have the forecasted Thanksgiving spike, did not have the forecasted Christmas spike, and did not have the forecasted New Years Eve spike.
This “performance” is despite SD not having the more onerous mitigation mandates, all businesses operating as they see fit without government restriction, all schools open and all sports going on (vs. for example the heavy mitigation restrictions yet infection surging and stressed hospitals right across the border in Minnesota.
Nobody will want to admit but the only explanation is we are getting close to some level of herd immunity without the vaccine and the only way that is possible is our light mitigation restrictions allowed those who weren’t vulnerable and likely to be asymptomatic to get Covid and recover while we did our best to protect the vulnerable.
Like Governor Noem or not, overtime the results here are trending significantly better than anywhere else, except for our long-term care deaths and most elderly deaths*. In all other metrics (Covid trends, impact on learning, government budgetary impact, lost business, minimal impact on income equality, and low impact on mental health and addiction relative to the nation and other states), South Dakota is the leader.
If we hadn’t gotten the vaccine, our nascent herd immunity would be even more valuable making Noem’s management of Covid even more prescient.
*I think these deaths are going to speed up an over-due review or our entire long-term care strategies and locations in the state. We aren’t in the bottom 21 states listed below but I think we can do better than being in the middle.
From the Kaiser Family Foundation: “Nationwide, deaths in long-term care facilities account for 40% of all COVID-19 deaths. In 18 states, COVID-19 deaths in long-term care facilities account for at least half of all deaths due to the pandemic (NH, RI, CT, MN, KY, PA, MA, NE, ME, ND, OH, DE, WA, OR, IN, VT, MD, NC). In three states, long-term care COVID-19 deaths account for over 70% of COVID-19 deaths in the state (NH, RI, and CT). Many states have consistently reported a high burden of COVID-19 deaths in long-term care facilities, with Minnesota, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire consistently reporting among the highest shares of COVID-19 deaths in long-term care facilities. See Data Notes below for more details on the share of COVID-19 deaths in long-term care facilities.”
Cities requiring us to wear masks and a lack of population density in this state are the reasons for the decrease in covid cases.
Nice try Genius but nonsense. We were also population dense when we had a spike. And it didn’t protect us from having per capita high cases. Plus, the mask mandate counties have the slowest decline in cases.
The data and science is showing the virus is running out of steam here.
But when the best ya got is to make stuff up, I guess it is what some people do.
VSG is Liberal drool from SouthDacola blog spilling over to here. He rarely comments on here like he does on the Communist blog.