On Monday, June 1, the City Council met in regular session. During the meeting, they followed the example of Sioux Falls and voted to adopt Ordinance 657, which rescinded the capacity limits imposed by Ordinance 656 due to the coronavirus pandemic. The new ordinance does put the responsibility on community and business members to continue following CDC guidelines, including social distancing and hygiene practices.
The reasoning behind removing the limits was due to lower levels of viral activity than initially feared, and the ability of hospital capacity to now keep up with new cases that may present with complications.
However, this does not mean the threat of the pandemic has disappeared. South Dakota has been averaging around 1,000 active cases per day over the past few weeks, and without mitigation measures, it can spread very quickly. This was seen in the case of Smithfield Foods in April. Currently, approximately 9% of all active cases in South Dakota are hospitalized, and as of Tuesday, 62 people have died in the state and over 105,000 people in the United States have died due to COVID-19 or its complications since February.
