PIERRE, S.D. (By Lisa Kaczke, Sioux Falls Argus Leader) – South Dakota’s COVID-19 cases saw a record increase of 343 on Thursday. On top of that, the state added 280 previously unreported cases to its total.
The South Dakota Department of Health said a “reporting aberration” caused an under-report in new cases Tuesday and Wednesday. It corrected Tuesday’s new cases to 133 and Wednesday’s new cases to 292, which would have also set a record for the highest one-day total.
All told, the count of confirmed coronavirus cases increased by 623 Thursday. That number doesn’t include people who may have the virus but were not tested.
The state has 2,000 active COVID-19 cases, which also broke the previous record of 1,570 set on Monday.
The Sturgis Rally is a factor in the increasing number of new cases, state health officials said on Thursday. Eighty-eight people associated with the rally have tested positive, according to state epidemiologist Josh Clayton said. Additionally, Meade County, where Sturgis is located, had an increase of 33 cases on Thursday, according to Health Secretary Kim Malsam-Rysdon.
What went wrong?
The reporting error that affected the case counts on Tuesday and Wednesday began on Sunday evening and was discovered by health officials on Wednesday afternoon.
The error occurred during the “automated geocoding process” of new test results received into the state’s electronic reporting system, according to the health department. The geocoding process is a verification step to ensure state and county of residence are accurate for an individual. The process didn’t verify state and county of residence in the data, meaning it didn’t identify lab reports as South Dakota cases, for data on Monday and Tuesday, which were reported to the public on Tuesday and Wednesday, Clayton said.
The health department began reviewing its data on Tuesday afternoon and completed the review on Wednesday afternoon. The error was fixed by Wednesday night, according to the department’s statement on the issue.
It only affected the data that was posted on the state’s coronavirus website and didn’t cause delays for the state receiving lab reports, investigating new cases or notifying close contacts, Clayton said.
Thursday’s numbers
Recoveries statewide increased to 10,032.
Two more people have been hospitalized. The state health department says 983 total people have been hospitalized during the pandemic and 75 people are currently hospitalized.
After the corrections for Tuesday and Wednesday and new cases on Thursday, Minnehaha County has 5,028 total cases and Lincoln County has 830 total cases.
A total of 604 have tested positive in Brown County, which is up 42. Of that total, 106 are active cases. In all 243 Codington County residents have tested positive, which is up 22. Of those cases 73 are active.
Many other area counties added cases those changes are as follows:
- Day County added two cases for a total of 34 (six active).
- Deuel County added four cases for a total of 38 (12 active).
- Edmunds County added one case for a total of 27 (four active).
- Faulk County added two cases for a total of 31 (three active),
- Grant County added two cases for a total of 41 (nine active).
- Potter County is up three cases for a total of seven (five active).
- Roberts County is up two for a total of 93 (11 active).
- Spink County added six new cases for a total of 44 (17 active).
- Walworth County added five new cases for a total of 37 (17 active).
All four positive cases in Campbell County have recovered, according to Department of Health statistics.
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