165 Positive COVID-19 Cases Now in South Dakota
South Dakota has 36 new cases of COVID-19, bringing the statewide total to 165. Minnehaha County saw the largest jump with 14 new cases. The county now has 54 total.
Its neighbor Lincoln County saw another 6 cases in the past day. Health officials have added it to counties with significant community spread. That’s when the source of infection is unknown.
Lawrence County is the first West Rriver county to develop significant community spread. Roberts and Spink Counties now have minimal to moderate community spread.
Governor Noem to Activate National Guard
Governor Kristi Noem is activating the National Guard to help hospitals respond to cases of COVID-19. The guard will build supplemental medical facilities in Sioux Falls and Rapid City before expanding to other parts of the state.
The governor says efforts to contain the spread of coronavirus have provided more time to prepare for a surge of potential cases. But ultimately the state will need more hospital beds.
“We will be releasing the details of what units will be serving. The planners and a lot of engineers are helping in the emergency operations center already. And we’ll be pulling more of their skilled individuals for setting up these hospitals in Rapid City and Sioux falls in the coming days.”
Each supplemental facility will provide 100 beds, but Noem says there’s more to increasing hospital capacity.
“We need to stand up a specific number of ICU beds, a specific number of beds that have ventilator capacity in the room to do that. And we also are gonna be working very hard to make sure our COVID 19 positive patients are not gonna be intermingled with other patients who have other health needs.”
The Department of Health is working with the state’s healthcare systems to be sure they’re prepared for a surge.
“We want them not to just be able to meet our projected capacity but to be overprepared to take care of those who might need some healthcare in the future dealing with this virus.”
The governor says she will share more details on projected infection and death rates on Friday.
Second Week of Record Unemployment Claims in SD
For the second week in a row, the coronavirus pandemic is forcing a record number of South Dakotans onto the unemployment rolls. About 6,600 people filed claims for unemployment assistance last week in South Dakota. That’s the most since publication of the data began in the 1980s. And it's more than three times higher than the week before.
The pandemic is prompting local business closures and that’s pushing people out of work.
Governor Kristi Noem says the number of unemployment claims may still be on the rise. She encourages people to file claims online at raclaims.sd.gov instead of by phone.
“We are getting really high call volumes. We have a lot of folks who are calling in, signing in for unemployment. I want to encourage folks to be willing to fill out the applications online. There’s no need to call in and to check on a claim. If you do do this online, we appreciate that. That will help with shortening our wait times on the call.”
National unemployment figures are also setting records. The Department of Labor reports that more than 6 million people filed for unemployment nationally last week. That doubled the previous record of about 3 million from the week before.
When workers lose a job through no fault of their own, they can apply to state unemployment trust funds for weekly payments. Congress passed legislation recently to make the payments bigger and longer in duration during the pandemic.
Small Business Association Offering Loans
The Small Business Association will offer loans to help South Dakota businesses pay salaries for the next eight weeks.
Jamie Wood is the association’s state director. She says they have three kinds of loans. Two of the loans are financed by the federal government and Wood says the other is financed through small business lenders.
“A question we are getting is, ‘how many of these loans can I pay for – or can I apply for and which ones should I apply for?’ The answer to that is going to depend on what the business needs. However, we’re reccomending that you apply for all of them because they’re so business friendly.”
Wood says all of the loans are forgivable and can be used for payroll and contracts.
John Thune on COVID-19
South Dakota U.S. Senator John Thune says the response to the coronavirus pandemic needs to be as strong as the problem we’re facing as a nation. He says we should also learn from other countries and be aggressive in getting people back to work.
Senator John Thune says he is staying isolated at his Sioux Falls home, with an occasional visit to his office. His staff is also working from home. Thune says while a vaccine is vital, it could take a year before it’s available. On a call with the national director of infectious diseases, Thune says he encouraged Anthony Fauci to move more quickly.
"Testing on a massive scale to me seems to be a solution short of the vaccine that could at least enable us to get back to some sense of normalcy. So that’s my message to them is let’s gear up testing because the only way we get the economy back on track is get the healthcare crisis addressed. Until we have that vaccine, we have to be able to determine who has it who doesn’t and then the economy can begin to start opening up.”
Thune says he supports free testing on a massive scale. He says getting that data will help people know if they’re sick and also help scientists study the disease. Thune says the U.S. also needs to figure out its supply chain.
“These are critical industries and we need to make sure we’re producing these things close to home so that when crisis hits, we can gear up quickly.”
Senator Thune says the U.S. has to use its brainpower to scale up production of essential healthcare supplies. He says leaders at every level must take the necessary steps to defeat the pandemic crisis. Thune says he isn’t familiar with the data Governor Kristi Noem is using to decide not to declare a statewide stay at home order and non-essential business shutdown.