HURON — With no Department of Health press conference until Tuesday, new numbers are all local residents have to go on, and they were fairly bleak over the weekend as Beadle County and the surrounding area continued to see escalating numbers of positive cases.

Saturday and Sunday brought 33 new positives to Beadle’s tally, which brings the county’s total positive tests to 131. Three cases were declared recovered over the weekend, which brings the county’s total to 22, and when that number and the two deaths in the county in March are subtracted from the total positives, that leaves Beadle with 107 active cases.

Other surrounding counties have also seen similar jumps. Jerauld County added a total of 12 cases over the weekend to bring its overall positive total to 28. Sanborn County reached double digits total as well with a pair of positive cases added to its total.
In total, the Heartland region has seen 138 new positive cases since May 15, with only four additional recovered cases in that time. There have been two hospitalizations as a result of the positive number spike.

The numbers should only climb as next week will begin testing at senior living facilities in the region, testing both residents and staff at the facilities. While additional testing will spark some additional positives simply by nature of testing, Beadle County has been notably high in its ratio of positive tests, with 109 positive tests since May 15 out of 191 tests reported, for a 57% positive test rate.