PIERRE, S.D. – South Dakota health officials reported 16 new cases of COVID-19 in their Wednesday report, and nearly all of them were in western South Dakota.
Active cases saw a slight uptick to 148 from Tuesday’s 146, but the number of people hospitalized dropped back below 20 to 19.
Two new deaths were reported, sending the state’s death toll to 2,035. The two new deaths were two women in the 70-79 age range in the counties of Buffalo and Pennington.
The Black Hills area accounted for 13 of the 16 new cases. There were 4 in Pennington County, 3 each in Lawrence and Meade, two in Custer and one in Oglala Lakota.
Also today, the first case of the delta variant of the coronavirus has been confirmed in South Dakota.
The South Dakota Department of Health reported the first case of the B.1.617.2 on Wednesday.
The DOH says the one case of the variant was identified in Edmunds County. Health officials say there are likely other cases of the variant across the state.
The World Health Organization has started naming notable variants after letters of the Greek alphabet. The DOH reports variant cases through the science-based number names like B.1.1.7 (Alpha variant), which is the leading variant in the state with 169 confirmed cases.
State health officials have said they are anticipating a rise in coronavirus cases based on South Dakota’s vaccine rates.
