by Carrie Moritz, Gazette
On Monday, the Garretson City Council faced the choice between extending Ordinance 655, which limited patrons to 10 or less at businesses such as restaurants, or voting to approve a new ordinance which has much lower restrictions. The council opted to allow 655 to lapse, and voted unanimously for Ordinance 656. Garretson restaurants and food establishments can now host up to 6 legal adults in a party (minors are not counted), and up to as many parties as their capacity, with 6-foot distancing between parties, will allow. Entertainment and recreational facilities can host up to 50% of its maximum capacity, and all other businesses are encouraged to continue to maintain social distancing procedures.
The council also voted to re-open the City’s parks, including playground equipment, picnic shelters, camping, and sanitary facilities, with signage posted to encourage CDC protocols to continue.
Everything is to take effect immediately.
While all estimates state that South Dakota (and especially Minnehaha County) is not yet past its peak infection rate for the novel coronavirus, the release of Governor Noem’s “Back to Work” initiative, announced last week, has made it difficult for South Dakota to continue imposing strict regulations within its towns and cities.
When citywide restrictions were applied at the end of March, South Dakota had only seen 30 cases of COVID-19 and one death. Cases were not yet increasing exponentially, and Italy, which was suffering the worst of any country at that point, seemed very far away. It was hoped that by implementing strict regulations on gathering, that the number of cases could be mitigated.
By the next week, however, cases had started increasing rapidly. By April 5, it started an exponential climb. Between April 12 and April 18, an outbreak at Smithfield Foods was becoming apparent as cases suddenly jumped, surpassing 100 new cases per day. Two weeks out from that, the numbers of cases have started leveling off, dropping down to around 50 new cases per day.
While over 16,000 people in South Dakota have tested negative so far, per Secretary of Health Kim Malsam-Rysdon, the state has a capacity to process 3,000 tests per day. As of Friday, May 1, the state was not seeing that level.
Testing is not currently including antibody testing, which is showing whether someone has already had the virus, even if they tested negative. While hospitals around the state have started offering it, antibody testing is not yet widespread in South Dakota. Antibody testing has not yet been proven as effective proof of immunity, but signs are growing that some immunity is conferred. Per the FDA, more widespread data is needed in order to confirm this. The SD Department of Health is continuing to tell people who have tested positive for antibodies to continue social distancing, masking, handwashing, and other mitigation behaviors, because false positives, fraudulent testing, and antibody cross-reactivity in testing to other coronaviruses may exist.
The major outbreaks of COVID-19 have been in Minnehaha, Lincoln, Brown, and Union Counties. The majority of South Dakota has a sprinkling of cases here and there, with many counties containing no currently active cases, which means that mitigation has worked in the more rural areas of the state. In Minnehaha and Lincoln Counties, however, the story is different. Most of the cases are still centered in these two counties, which means that risk of transmission is still high. With Garretson in Minnehaha County, the city’s residents need to ensure they continue to take precautions.
“We are not Sioux Falls,” said Mayor Greg Beaner during Monday night’s council meeting, “but we’re related to Sioux Falls. People work and shop there.”
However, as for the number of active or recovered cases in Garretson, that data is unknown. While the Gazette has heard of a couple possible cases in the past month, none have been confirmed. The state is only releasing numbers by county, and not by zip code, and the governor is refusing to release those numbers.
The mayor let the council know this was not helping Garretson. While resources may be an issue regarding why data is not being drilled down, it is still frustrating, because right now the council is left just guessing due of lack of information, he said.
However, following the example of Sioux Falls, which had a first reading on a new ordinance on Friday that increased business capacity, the Garretson City Council voted unanimously to increase Garretson business capacity as well. Garretson did not have to have a second reading on its ordinance due to a public health-oriented ordinance that is on the books.
