In the State of South Dakota, there was one new death attributed to COVID-19 announced in the state Department of Health daily briefing on April 16.
There were 143 new positive cases identified as well, state Epidemiologist Dr. Joshua Clayton said.
There were four new hospitalizations, making for a current COVID-19 occupancy of 36 individuals. A new statistic rolled out on Thursday: The current number in the hospital.
There were no updates to the community spread map and each of the following counties had one new case: Hamlin, Jerauld, Lake, Moody, Pennington and Yankton. There were also six in Lincoln and 131 new cases in Minnehaha County.
The cluster in Minnehaha County around Smithfield Foods continues to expand, like a ripple across a calm lake, as 80 more employees tested positive for COVID-19 from the plant, reported on Thursday.
Currently, officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are working with South Dakota officials to assess the situation with the plant. They are working on a timeline to produce accurate information with the state and plan to release the data acquired after it is collected, Clayton said.
With other plants in the nation also closing down, officials hope information and data gathered will help. The Smithfield plant, under normal circumstances, process 5% of the nation’s pork. It has been deemed an essential infrastructure business.
The state continues to only test symptomatic folks in the Smithfield cluster, Clayton said. They are not planning to test everyone at the plant to allow folks to return to work.
Smithfield totals stand at 733 positive COVID-19 cases related to the plant. Of those, 598 are employees and 135 have resulted from “close contacts” with employees.
The state does retain data concerning the 136 close contact positive Smithfield cases, but they do not release to the public if the contacts were made in the employees’ homes or in public setting based on their adherence to privacy.
In cases where the state is unable to locate contacts for an individual because of a public setting, the state does issue public notices and press releases including specific dates and times at specific businesses, Clayton said.
“Again, I think the focus here has to be on, we are seeing community transmission in a large number of our counties,” Clayton said. “So, it is expected that a large proportion of those who become infected, are going to be workers. One thing to be aware of is while there is potential risk within workplace setting, we are working to mitigate that through our containment measures. Isolating COVID-19 cases to home as well as working with those who are close contacts to have them stay at home as well for the 14-day duration.”
In the case of Smithfield employee notification, the question came up to discuss contact tracing where an individual’s first language is not English.
First, the call the individual receives from the health department contact tracing team will actually be the second call the individual received about testing positive. The first will be from the clinician or provider, Clayton said.
If folks need an interpreter, the state does provide a service, by phone, to help them navigate the steps they need to take to make sure they stay home.
State officials make sure the individuals are safe and can comply with the quarantine isolation period, and “make the appropriate referrals for different services and to make sure they can safely stay in their home,” Clayton said.
“Then, the same staff are also turning around and making calls to individuals that are close contacts of that positive COVID-19 case and making the information to make sure that they understand that they have been a close contact to a COVID-19 case. That they understand that they are to stay at home for 14 days after their last exposure to the COVID-19 case. And also making any additional referrals, or notices to employers to help make that there’s an awareness that the individual is being asked by the department of health to either isolate to home or to quarantine to home based on a close contact or COVID-19 case.”
