South Dakota’s approach to the pandemic is attracting worldwide scrutiny.
A London-based magazine, The Economist, recently published an article about the state.
Callum Williams is a senior writer for the magazine. In an interview with SDPB’s Lori Walsh on “In the Moment,” Williams said South Dakota is making a rare calculation about lives and livelihoods.
“What has happened, in effect, is that South Dakota or the government of South Dakota in fact has chosen to protect the economy even though the deaths from COVID have been high,” Williams said. “Now that’s a very uncomfortable tradeoff to make. And the article doesn’t judge whether that’s the right tradeoff to make, either. It just is the tradeoff.”
The Economist article notes that South Dakota shied away from statewide stay-at-home orders and mask mandates, and also avoided an economic collapse. Williams said many other places are suffering dual crises: high death counts, and a devastated economy.
“So there is now a kind of growing conversation happening in particular between economists over whether lockdowns were worth it,” Williams said. “Some economists say they were, and have their calculations to show it; other economists have their own calculations to say, ‘No, they weren’t worth it – they actually weren’t worth it in economic terms.’ I don’t yet have an answer to that question.”
Williams said South Dakota is uniquely situated to avoid lockdowns because of its relative isolation and sparse population.
South Dakota currently has the nation’s lowest unemployment rate and eighth-highest COVID-19 death rate.