The exponential rise of cases in SD has began. Heck of a job, Kristi.
‘It Really Is the Perfect Storm’: Coronavirus Comes for Rural America
In rural Washington, hospitals are faltering, stores can’t get supplies and people are staying closer to each other than you’d think.
www.politico.com
“One of the negatives of living in a rural community is you think it protects you somehow,” says Leibrand, who for years has also been the health officer—a sort of local surgeon general—of the county, a sprawling expanse of rich alluvial farmland, exurban bedroom communities and steep Cascade peaks midway between Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia. “We get a little bit cavalier, a little lazy about social distancing.” On April 1, Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota—one of five states, all in the central heartland, without stay-at-home orders—
defended her decision to leave South Dakotans “free to exercise their rights to work, to worship, and to play” by saying, “South Dakota is not New York City, and our sense of personal responsibility, our resiliency and our already sparse population density put us in a great position to manage this virus” without resorting to the “draconian” measures taken elsewhere.
Complacency is fast fading, however, as rural residents realize that, far from being immune, they may be uniquely vulnerable when the epidemic reaches them. Even as Noem spoke, Covid-19 was spreading at a Sioux Falls meatpacking plant that subsequently
closed after more than 300 workers fell sick, and local officials across the state begged her to issue shutdown and shelter-in-place orders."