Beadle, Kingsbury each add one new positive case

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PIERRE — For the second day in a row, Beadle County’s active COVID-19 case load increased by one, as announced by the South Dakota Department of Health with no new recovered cases. The county’s active cases are currently at 40.

In Wednesday’s reporting, the state cleared 100,000 total cases tested. With 66 new positive cases reported on Thursday, South Dakota has now reported 8,143 positive cases and 94,393 negative cases.

The state also announced two new deaths on Thursday, bringing the total to 121 deaths in the state from COVID-19. The state’s active case number rose to 808 active cases.

Within the Heartland region, recovered cases announced Wednesday and Thursday had initially brought Hand and Kingsbury counties both to zero active cases, but Thursday’s numbers announced that Kingsbury had added one new positive case. The region has just seven active cases outside Beadle County. Thursday’s announced tests brought the region to 12% of all residents tested.

In their press briefing Thursday, DOH addressed tests completed and persons tested. State epidemiologist reported that an update to the DOH COVID-19 website will be coming next week that will distinguish the persons tested and tests completed. What is presented now on the site is the people tested, per Clayton.

Clayton also reported that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) had made changes in how to term recovery in those who had suffered severe illness from COVID-19. Those individuals will move from being eligible to be deemed recovered after 20 days rather than 10 days.

While individuals that suffer from long-term effects of COVID-19 may no longer be at risk to transmit the virus, they could still be suffering from the effects, and that could currently prevent that person from being deemed recovered from the illness, though they would not be able to transmit the virus. This change from the CDC will allow the state to more accurately depict the number of people who are currently able to spread the virus within the state that have been reported.