Governor Kristi Noem has released an executive order with baseline recommendations for ways businesses, healthcare providers, and communities should react to the coronavirus pandemic.
These instructions include limiting elective healthcare procedures…restricting gatherings of ten or more people…and moving food service to take-out or curb-side services only.
When pressed for clarification, the governor maintains it’s up to local authorities to enforce or surpass these protective measures.
“And obviously if you want to use an example, we can talk about what Huron did yesterday. They went ahead and had a joint city council county commission meeting, they made a decision to put in place some resolutions and ordinances that would be enforceable and took action in their community. That’s something every community in the state of South Dakota will have the chance to do. My job as governor is to set a baseline of what that should look like from boarder to border in the state of South Dakota, and this is what I’m telling our counties and committees to do.”
The full text of the executive order is available here. The governor is expected to address further changes for k-12 education and state employees tomorrow.