Noem will not issue stay-at-home order in Sioux Falls area
April 14, 2020
Gov. Kristi Noem won’t be issuing a shelter-in-place, or stay-at-home, order for Minnehaha and Lincoln counties.
Mayor Paul TenHaken made the request last week following an influx of COVID-19 cases connected to Smithfield.
“I’m not going to do that,” Noem said. “I don’t believe it’s appropriate considering the data and the science and the facts that we have.”
There have been 438 Smithfield employees who have tested positive so far plus 107 people who were connected to employees, such as family and friends, Noem said. That accounts for about 70 percent of positive cases in Minnehaha County.
“A shelter in place would have had no impact on what happened in Smithfield,” Noem said, reiterating that the meatpacking plant is considered an essential business because of its role in the food supply. Its workers would have continued reporting to work during a stay-at-home order.
The state has doubled the number of people at the Health Department assisting with contact tracing, or tracking down those who might have been exposed to people who tested positive, so they can self-isolate.
When people test positive for COVID-19, “we work with each of them individually,” Noem said. “We give them the opportunity to go into isolation at home where they’re comfortable.”
Those who can’t do that at home are offered the chance to stay at a hotel, she said. The state pays for the stay.
TenHaken also had requested the state designate an “isolation camp in Sioux Falls that could hold 7,000 people in a location” such as the Sioux Falls Convention Center, Noem said, that would include resources from the South Dakota National Guard.
“I will not be doing that either,” Noem said. “If the local community and the mayor want to pursue that they have the opportunity to do that as well.”
The Sioux Falls City Council will do a first reading of its shelter-in-place order Wednesday with a vote that could come the following week.
Noem said she is working with Smithfield to come up with a plan so it can reopen.
She also said the state is beginning to get a sense of the economic fallout of COVID-19 that includes significantly lower sales tax revenue and a dramatic impact to video lottery revenue.
“We will get numbers that will be shocking to all of you,” she said.
