South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem warded off criticism of her hands-off approach to handling the CCP virus pandemic, stating that the one-size-fits-all approach is “herd mentality, not leadership.”
The governor addressed the state on Wednesday after facing pressure for not issuing a stay-at-home order in light of the CCP virus pandemic, commonly referred to as the coronavirus pandemic.
Noem has been limiting state guidelines to personal hygiene and social distancing measures, requesting telework for businesses, deferring elective surgeries, and asking restaurants to limit business to takeaway, the Dickinson Press reported.
“My role with respect to public safety is something I take very seriously,” Noem said during a press conference. “[But it’s] the people themselves [who] are primarily responsible for their safety. They are the ones entrusted with expansive freedoms—they are free to exercise their rights to work, worship, and play—or to stay at home, or to conduct social distancing.”
Noem said she did not want to resort to “draconian” measures like those seen in Wuhan, and increasingly in the hotspot of New York City. “The calls to apply a one-size-fits-all approach to this problem in South Dakota is herd mentality, not leadership,” she said.
The governor further argued that the situation in rural South Dakota is distinctively different from that of a metropolitan area like New York City. Currently, some thirty states have adopted some form of stay-at-home orders, unlike South Dakota.
“South Dakota is not New York City,” she said. “Our sense of personal responsibility, our resilience, and our already sparse population density put us in a great position to manage the spread of this virus without needing to resort to some of the measures we’ve seen in some of these major cities, coastal cities, and other countries.”
The South Dakota State Medical Association wrote a letter to Noem urging for more stringent guidelines alongside several Mayors and County officials. Noem, however, has refrained from issuing stricter regulations, although she did say that townships are indeed free to implement their own COVID-19 control plans.
Instead, she advocated for a more rational approach based on conservative values, facts, and data:
“My responsibility is to respect the rights of the people who elected me and to manage our state operations in a way that reflects the realities of what we have here on the ground.
“On the foundation of my principles, commonsense conservative values, and the principles we hold dear in America, the facts, the science, and the data will guide our decision-making here in South Dakota,” she said.
South Dakota has one of the lowest numbers of CCP virus infection in the country. As of Thursday, the state has 169 known CCP virus cases. Two have died from the virus and 57 have recovered.
