County, state, see notable drop in active cases

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HURON — A recent trend continued Tuesday, as the number of recovered COVID-19 cases in the state were notably high, setting another single-day record, and impacting the active cases at the state level, as well as Beadle County and the Heartland Region.

The South Dakota Department of Health (DOH) reported 448 new positive cases in its Tuesday numbers along with two new deaths and 3,542 new recovered cases. The previous high mark for single-day recovered cases was 2,648, set on Nov. 21, but the state has exceeded 1,000 new recovered cases in a single day 10 times since Nov. 1, which was the first time the state had ever reported more than 862 in a single day.

The large number of recovered cases dropped the active cases in the state to 14,088, the lowest number reported by DOH since Nov. 5.

Beadle County reported 14 new positive cases in Tuesday’s numbers along with 91 new recovered cases, which dropped the county’s active cases to 389.

That number is the lowest Beadle’s recovered cases have been since they were at 388 on Nov. 5.

The seven-county Heartland Region reported 19 new positive cases and 191 new recovered cases in Tuesday’s DOH reporting.

The region’s active cases dropped to 782, which constitutes 1.89% of the region’s residents, the lowest rate of active cases since Nov. 2.

While previous reporting on the large recovered cases did indicate that additional allowances by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) led to more persons who were positive with COVID-19 being eligible to be removed from active rolls, the recent surge is due in large part to recent work on technology, per a DOH official, who requested to speak to the subject anonymously.

The DOH has been sending text messages and/or emails to COVID-positive persons in the state, and the response to those emails has allowed the state to move a notable number of cases from “active” to “recovered” on the numbers.

The official stated that while a county like Beadle has a system like the call center that does many of the follow-up calls from positive cases, other counties do not have such a system, and those calls are done by DOH, often going unanswered.

Reaching out via technology has allowed the state to achieve better response results and can also allow for more ease in contact tracing as well as the COVID-positive individual is able to enter close contacts into a survey rather than attempting to remember information off-hand while on a phone call. The ability to utilize technology by DOH is hoped to continue to drive down the active caseload to a more “representative” number of the active cases within the state.