PIERRE, S.D. – South Dakota health officials reported three new deaths and 176 new cases of COVID-19 Wednesday.
The three new deaths sends the state’s death toll to 1,915.
Of the new cases, 45 were considered probable.
Active cases of the virus dropped by 37 today to 2,107 and the number of people hospitalized totaled 68.
Pennington County had 13 total new cases Wednesday, with 3 of them considered probable.
Meade and Fall River County each added 3 new cases and there was one new case each in Lawrence, Butte and Custer Counties.
During their bi-weekly press briefing today, State Epidemiologist Dr. Joshua Clayton says there has still just been two reported variants of COVID-19 in the state. Those two cases were out of Minnehaha County. He says these variants seem to be more easily transmissible.
Clayton says the three vaccines that are currently being used in the state seem to protect against the new variants.
On the topic of vaccinations, Health Secretary Kim Malsam Rysdon says they have seen over 201,000 South Dakotans receiving vaccine so far.
She says the vaccine allocation for next week stands at 21,000. She says that does not include the supply being distributed by the federal government directly to those federal retail pharmacies or to systems like the Indian Health Service and Veterans Administration.
