PIERRE, S.D. – South Dakota saw its deadliest week of the summer as South Dakota health officials reported nine new deaths in their weekly COVID-19 report.
The nine new deaths included one each out of Lawrence, Meade and Pennington Counties where the death tolls rise to 85, 65 and 350 respectively. The state’s death toll rose to 2,956.
The number of new cases over the past week dropped a bit from last week to 1,498. Active cases, however, increased to 4,390.
The number of people hospitalized due to the virus dropped by four this week to 82.
Across the Black Hills area, Pennington County reported the most cases with 231 – although that is down from last week’s 252. There are 709 active cases in Pennington County.
Oglala Lakota County had the second highest number of new cases this week with 52. Then it was Meade County with 51 and Lawrence County with 50.
Elsewhere, Fall River County had 25 new cases, Butte County added 19 and Custer County listed eight.
As of July 27, 61 of South Dakota’s 66 counties are listed as having “high” or “substantial” community spread. “High” community spread is 100 cases or greater per 100,000 or a 10% or greater PCR test positivity rate.
