PIERRE, S.D. – Health officials reported 562 new COVID-19 cases in their Wednesday report along with 18 new COVID-19 related deaths.
The death toll is now at 1,464. There have been 518 deaths reported in December. The new deaths were 11 men and seven women.
Active cases dropped slightly to 5,729 and after two days of increases, the number of people hospitalized due to the virus dropped by 10 to 293.
New cases across West River counties totaled 166 Wednesday.
Pennington County had the most with 88, followed by Meade County with 20.
Pennington County’s total rises to 11,117 with 768 remaining active. In Meade County, the cumulative total is 2,222 with 120 active.
Lawrence County added 9 new cases Wednesday for a total of 2,541 and 114 remaining active.
Other new cases West River Wednesday included 11 in Oglala Lakota, 9 in Butte, 7 in Todd, 4 each in Dewey and Tripp, 3 in Fall River, 2 each in Ziebach, Haakon and Mellette and one each in Custer, Perkins, Stanley and Bennett.
Vaccine tracking is now being reported by the state, as of Wednesday, 9,875 doses of the Pfizer vaccine and 9,085 doses of the Moderna vaccine have been administered to 18,960 total persons.
