One year has passed since South Dakota reported its first case of COVID-19. Since last March, more than 113,000 people have gotten the virus. About 1,900 South Dakotans have died.
Secretary of Health Kim Malsam-Rysdon says it’s been hard to see how the disease has affected health workers.
“We were seeing large numbers of hospital staff who themselves were sick. So, we were seeing stress on our hospital partners in that regard and just the increasing the number of people we needed to take care of.”
Malsam-Rysdon says more than 6,700 South Dakotans have been hospitalized so far.
State epidemiologist Josh Clayton says infections and new cases continue despite mitigation efforts.
“Despite all of those really strong efforts by us and our partners, we’re still seeing those cases increase.”
Clayton and Malsam-Rysdon say increasing doses of COVID-19 vaccine give South Dakotans more opportunities to overcome the pandemic.
As for today, state health officials report 209 new COVID-19 cases and three new deaths.
The latest fatalities bring the state’s death toll to 1,904.
Both active cases and hospitalizations are up slightly. There are 2,114 current infections and 73 people hospitalized.
Health systems have distributed vaccine doses to more than 173,000 South Dakotans. About 94,000 people have completed the full vaccine series.