South Dakota – the Least Restrictive State in the Western World, Yet COVID Deaths Now Averaging One a Day

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by Noah Carl via Lockdown Sceptics

As I noted back in March, South Dakota may have taken the least restrictive approach to COVID-19 of anywhere in the Western world. Its conservative governor, Kristi Noem, has been a stalwart opponent of lockdowns: when the state’s epidemic burgeoned at the end of August, there were practically no restrictions in place. Despite this, case numbers fell rapidly after reaching a peak in mid November. And by late February, they were in the low triple digits.

How has it fared since then? Case numbers have remained low, averaging about 170 per day:

And deaths have continued to fall. The last seven days saw an average of just one death per day:

Although South Dakota has the eighth highest death rate among US states, its epidemic retreated without any government intervention. (And no new restrictions were introduced in March or the first week of April.)

What’s more, South Dakota has done better economically than most other states and Western countries. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, its GDP fell only 1.7% in 2020 – the seventh lowest among US states. (Britain’s GDP plunged nearly 10% last year.) In addition, South Dakota currently has the lowest unemployment rate out of all 50 states – at just 2.9%.

One might say, “You can’t equate GDP and unemployment with human life”, but that simply isn’t true. The money to pay for the NHS (and programs like Medicare and Medicaid in the US) comes from taxing economic activity: the less economic activity, the less money there is available. And that’s before you even factor in the social costs of unemployment and bankruptcy.

One should be cautious about extrapolating from South Dakota to countries like Britain, given the state’s low population density. However, the trajectory of its epidemic casts serious doubt on the models that led us into lockdown.

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will
will
3 years ago

First off quit the same crap the fake news has been doing for 21 months. It is all FEAR MONGERING. SD is still running at .0089 % of deaths to population. I don’t care of the entire population slightly inder a million get the SARS-2 virus less than 1% will die. I hate the BS about how many cases have been reported. This is meaningless for tow reasons.. First the testing is 96% inaccurate. Second ,reporting numbers of people with virus is like reporting how many people got a cold during the Christmas Holidays. Why don’t you fools give it up and admit that the whole thing was not a pandemic, but aa Plan demic cooked up by the Davos Devils, Klaus Schwabe, Soros, Gates Fauci and the guys running the censorship sites like FB, Microsoft, twitter, Google, and other corrupt Oligarch with too much money and NO COMMON SENSE. Your HOAX is failing,because people are not Deplorables. Most of the are much smarter and sensible than any or you bunch of Yahoos.. Youe game of Simon Says is over and you lost.

will
will
3 years ago

Don’t listen to doctors is the lesson. Fauci the CDC, WHO all were wrong. You idiots shut down the only man who had the answer, President trump said take HCQ which attributed to the Continent of Africa having 76% less problems than the rest of the globe. They takethe Sunday-Sunday pill and have no fear of the China virus.
The Davos Devils who joined with the WICKED CCP to effect a biological war on the globe should all be made to stand before a Nuremberg type trial followed with Public hangings of the guilty.

will
will
3 years ago

THis fake news hit piece is an attempt to smear the best run state when it came to the China biological war unleashed on the world population. Most of it is pure fabrication, and hate speech against a great governor. What she did is what at least 16 states are now doing . Stop listening to that fool Fauci, the CDC, WhO and some old man who comes on tv from time to time and babbles, I guess when the nursing home staff doesn’t want to hear his nonsense for a few minutes.