PIERRE, S.D. – The South Dakota Department of Health reported 180 new positive cases of COVID-19 in its Wednesday report – all of them in eastern South Dakota.
Of those 180, 166 of them are in Minnehaha County and 80 of them are tied to the Smithfield Food Plant.
South Dakota Epidemiologist Joshua Clayton says 518 of the cases in Minnehaha County are employees of the plant and there an additional 126 known cases related to contact tracing — or people outside the plant who’ve been in contact with the employees, such as family members.
Minnehaha County has now seen 934 of the total number of cases so far. Neighboring Lincoln County has 65 total cases.
State Health Secretary Kim Malsom Rysdon says the C.D.C. is on the ground in Sioux Falls to help out with the Smithfield situation.
“We contacted them to bring some additional health experts in to help us understand the situation at Smithfield and the things they could do to help protect their workforce. Smithfield is working cooperately with us on this effort.”
Malsom-Rysdon also said one of the new cases reported today was an inmate at the Jameson Annex at the state prison. She says the inmate was brought in on Saturday night on an intoxication assessment. She says they were made aware that he had potential contact with a COVID-19 infected person and a test was administered on Sunday. That test came back positive on Monday.
Malsom-Rysdon says the inmate has had no contact with other inmates at the prison and is currently in isolation.
There were no new positive tests reported in western South Dakota. Pennington County remains at 9 with six people who have recovered from the virus. Also, the lone case reported in Oglala Lakota County was listed as recovered today.
There were six new hospitalizations reported today and 68 new recoveries.
