Ah, that statewide shelter-in-place order. We didn’t get one. We still don’t have one.
So what does that mean? What has it meant? What will it mean?
I’ve gone back and forth over the idea of a stay home order from the governor covering all of South Dakota, which I guess would eliminate my solo fishing trips and my dual hiking or cross-country skiing outings with Mary.
We've got a surprisingly low number of confirmed COVID-19 cases out there in West River, with nine in Pennington County being among the highest. So it seems like an occasional well-planned trip outdoors in this area isn't the most-reckless of ideas.
It’s easy when you’re out on some beautiful stretch of shoreline alone, to feel lucky, for now, to be living where I live. It’s easy to feel a little guilty, too, and gifted by a gubernatorial decision not to act on requests for that statewide edict.
Despite the temporary loss of my treasured outdoor trips, I would have preferred a statewide order from Gov. Kristi Noem a couple weeks ago, at least until we get a clearer idea of where we are and where we're going with COVID. I disagree, I think, with her notion that once an order is in place, it can't be removed for a time and then, if things change, imposed again for a time.
In a state like ours with its limited population, such flexibility seems workable. And I think it would work with the statewide order.
But that’s easy for me to say, I don't have to be the decider. Like the rest of you, I get to be the chider. Most of us are chiders rather than deciders. And it's so much easier, that chiding. We never have to be wrong, because we never have to actually prove we're right.
Noem doesn’t have that luxury. She has to decide, then she has to prove she was right, or eventually admit she was wrong. And being wrong on this can be a deadly mistake.
So how about that order, the one Noem hasn't issued. The one many have demanded, and many others have derided -- chiders on both sides, always chiding somebody about something.
Right now, Noem is getting chided by some for not imposing the statewide ban before the outbreak of COVID-19 was confirmed and spread among slaughterhouse workers at the Smithfield plant in Sioux Falls.
It has been chiding at a high pitch ever since that outbreak. And the number of cases is indeed scary, even long distance. I have family there, including an almost-80-year-old brother. So I think Noem should listen to Sioux Falls Mayor Paul TenHaken and health professionals across the nation and flex state muscle, at least in Sioux Falls.
Noem has issued an executive order in Minnehaha and Lincoln counties for those 65 and older and others more vulnerable to the disease to stay home. She maintains that such an order is not needed for the entire population, however.
Mayor Steve Allender of Rapid City, where local restrictions are greater and COVID cases much lower, told the Washington Post there were no winners and only a tough two-sided choice for deciders:
“You have to decide on which side of the argument you’re going to lose — the one that was too cautious or the one that was too reckless.”
Noem would argue that she has found the in-between Allender says doesn’t exist. She says the numbers and trends are on her side, even if the news stories and the opinions of a lot of infectious-disease experts aren’t. She thinks the state is prepared to prevent its health system from being overrun and argues that voluntary compliance with shelter-in-place, sanitize and social-distancing guidelines is better than in many areas with mandatory standards.
She continues to resist issuing statewide edicts, so far. And yesterday she was effusive in announcing a controversial statewide clinical trial for hydroxychloroquine, an unproven treatment for COVID-19 that seems to have some beneficial potential but can have potentially serious side effects in some patients. The trials are to be done in cooperation with the state’s three major health systems and the Trump Administration, a move likely to delight the president.
I’m both intrigued and unsettled by that initiative. Trials usually mean knowledge. And knowledge is a weapon in the war against infectious diseases. But the questions are many and the chances of failure, or worse, seem real. I’m assuming the health professionals at Sanford, Avera, and Monument wouldn’t be involved if it didn’t have some merit.
I hope they don’t prove me wrong.
When word of the outbreak at the Smithfield plant, which is closed indefinitely, hit the national media market, it hit hard. The overall message was: South Dakota's governor rejected “herd mentality” and “New York-South Dakota” comparison in not issuing a statewide order to stay home. The Post used that as a pretty damning segue into the fact that Sioux Falls now has a nationally prominent COVID hotspot.
Or, you might say, it has a tiny piece of New-York-style COVID trouble right here in Noem’s home state, the one you can’t compare with the Big Apple.
But what about that statewide order, the one that hasn’t been imposed? I’ve thought about that a lot. And this morning while flying through the flak of furious commentary on a conservative friend’s Facebook page, I ran across a landing strip laid out by one of those conservatives.
His name is Doug Sharp. And I don’t think he’d mind me naming him, since he asked his question on a social-media platform. Besides, it’s a good question: “With Smithfield Foods being an essential business, can someone explain what a shelter-in-place would have done to prevent this?”
What indeed? The plant was operating as an essential business, so I assume it would have continued to process hogs.
I suppose Noem could have been extremely prescient and, with everything else going on, identified Smithfield as a likely hotspot long before the outbreak. Then she could have worked with owners to change operations and reduce the threat of infections.
Would they have avoided the disease? Unlikely. Slowed its spread? Maybe.
Would an order to stay home have prevented Smithfield workers from moving around and spreading the disease through their lives outside the plant? Maybe. Who knows? How much have they spread it outside the plant so far. We’ll soon find out.
And maybe then we’ll get a better idea of what the missing order to stay home would or wouldn’t have meant to a small state that is now in the glare of the national spotlight, and to its governor.
