PIERRE, S.D. – The South Dakota Department of Health reported 90 new positive tests for COVID-19 in its Saturday report – all of them in eastern South Dakota.
Minnehaha County once again saw the bulk of the new cases with 86, as they now have a total of 438. The statewide total is now 626.
The Smithfield Foods Plant is a hot spot in Sioux Falls, and because of the cases there, the state declared a public health emergency on Friday. The state health department says as of Saturday, 238 cases in Sioux Falls are tied to the plant.
There was no change in the number of deaths – which stands at 6. So far, 189 people have recovered from the virus.
In Western South Dakota, there were no new cases reported. Pennington County had reported a positive COVID-19 test on Thursday and Friday. It remained at 8 cases today with 5 people recovered. Lawrence County remained at 9 with 8 people recovered. According to the testing, there are no active cases in Meade or Fall River County after their lone cases earlier have since recovered.
Testing, however, is expected to pick up in western South Dakota. Monument Health in Rapid City began processing its own COVID-19 test samples on Friday.
In a release, Monument stated that local testing will greatly reduce the time it takes to confirm whether a patient has been infected with the virus.
The PCR test has a 45 minute run time and 16 tests can be processed at once. The lab uses existing equipment to process the test kits.
