08/23/2021

South Dakota Sees the Country’s Largest Two-week COVID Surge

Its rates are still lower than Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi

South Dakota experienced a large spike in COVID-19 cases recently after the state’s governor, Kristi Noem, a Republican, said at the end of July she will not be ratcheting up efforts to encourage people to get the COVID vaccine.

The Midwestern state saw the country’s biggest two-week increase in COVID cases at 230 percent, according to New York Times data. The state recently increased the frequency with which it reports its COVID cases—from once a week to every weekday—which may have contributed to the boost.

Despite the spike, the state still has a much lower concentration of new COVID-19 cases (20 per 100,000 people) than current COVID hotspots such as Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi, which all have more than 100 cases per 100,000 people.

Please select this link to read the complete article from Fortune.