ABERDEEN, S.D. (aberdeennews.com) – Brown County added another six positive COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, three of which are connected to DemKota Ranch Beef.

That moves the total number of positive cases to 71 in Brown County, with 44 being workers at the beef plant, according to state officials.

Thirty people in Brown County have recovered and three have ever been hospitalized. There have been no local deaths directly associated with the virus, and 662 tests have been negative.

Three more deaths from COVID-19 were confirmed in South Dakota on Tuesday, according to the South Dakota Department of Health. All were women older than 80 in Minnehaha County, pushing the state’s death toll from the virus to 24.

The state confirmed 53 more cases of COVID-19 in South Dakota. That moves the state to a total of 2,721 cases, with 75 people currently hospitalized. The numbers do not include people who are showing symptoms but have not been tested or people who are asymptomatic.

The state now has 802 active cases and 1,895 people have recovered. There have been 16,301 negative tests.

Of the 309 new tests, there were 53 positive cases, giving a 17% positive rate.

Gov. Kristi Noem said that 1,500 people were tested during the first day of the pop-up COVID-19 testing center for employees of Smithfield Foods’ Sioux Falls plant and their families.

The tests, which are free and not required for employees to return to work, should take about 48 hours to show results. Ten percent of the people tested on Monday had COVID-19 symptoms, Noem said.

Union County in the southeast corner of the state had 14 new positive tests. State Epidemiologist Josh Clayton said they can be attributed to testing at a nearby Tyson Foods processing plant event.

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