This is the North Dakota Department of Health’s COVID positive rate graph (the bottom one is a 14 day moving average). Note the artfully drawn red line — that’s when Governor Doug Burgum obtained a microscope to locate his testicles and instituted a statewide mask mandate. But wait, what’s going on in South Dakota?
We all know that Dollar Store Sarah Palin, Governor Kristi Noem, has no intention of vacating her lair deep in the recesses of Trump’s ass to issue a mask mandate, so it has to be due to cities getting a clue:
When it comes to masks, Brookings took the lead. It was the first city to enact a mandate in South Dakota. […]
In mid-November three more of South Dakota’s larger cities enacted mandates. Huron was first, followed by Mitchell. […]
A Sioux Falls mandate took effect at midnight on November 21st.
SDSU Epidemiologist Bonny Specker has been tracking the numbers and says those four mandates appear to be making a difference.
“What is interesting is what happened with the seven-day running averages of new cases per day in the 10 counties with the most populous cities based on whether the largest city passed, or did not pass, a mask mandate before December 1st, a time that changes should be apparent by mid-December,” Specker said in an email.
She says Brookings, Beadle [Huron], Davison [Mitchell] and Minnehaha Counties [Sioux Falls] saw a 69 percent decrease in cases between November 15 and December 14. She says the six counties without a mask mandate before December 1 saw a 40 percent decrease.
I’d call this good news if I were able to ignore the deaths, and absolute devastation of the hospital systems, that preceded it.
