The South Dakota Department of Health is reporting 343 new cases of COVID-19 infection in the state today. Today’s update also includes cases that were not reported on August 25th and 26th due to a reporting aberration.
The South Dakota Department of Health has identified a reporting aberration that was isolated to the number of new cases and new tests reported to our website on Tuesday and Wednesday this week. The aberration occurred Sunday evening during the automated geocoding process of new test results received into our electronic disease surveillance system and was identified and corrected by Wednesday evening. The geocoding process is a verification step to ensure the state and county of residence are accurate when test results are received for an individual. The process did not verify state and county of residence in the 1:00 PM Monday and 1:00 PM Tuesday data used for reporting to the Department’s online dashboard. The data currently presented on the SD-DOH dashboard has been corrected.
The Department began a review of the data Tuesday afternoon, completed the review Wednesday afternoon, implemented a fix to the geocoding process, and added an additional review step to our reporting process by Wednesday evening. Please note that the issue only affected the data being reported on the dashboard and did not cause any delays receiving lab reports, investigating new cases, or notifying close contacts.
“In addition to ensuring we report accurate case numbers, the Department continues to monitor the number of people hospitalized as a result of COVID-19 and other key metrics as part of our response,” said Kim Malsam-Rysdon, Secretary of Health. “The recent increase in positive cases is not surprising with more people coming into contact with others across the state but our rate of hospitalizations and serious health impacts remains very low.”
The Department also reminds South Dakotans of the simple precautions they can take to protect themselves and others from COVID-19.
“We encourage individuals to remember to wash their hands, stay six feet away from others, avoid crowded areas, and consider wearing a mask when that isn’t possible,” said Dr. Joshua Clayton, state epidemiologist.
The corrected number of cases that should have been reported over the past two days are shown in the table below:
| New
Cases |
Cumulative
Cases |
Cumulative
Persons Tested |
Cumulative
Tests Reported to SD-DOH |
|||||
| Date | Reported (Change) | Corrected | Reported | Corrected | Reported | Corrected | Reported | Corrected |
| Tuesday, August 25 | 80 (+54) |
134 | 11,505 | 11,559 | 137,679 | 137,733 | 178,860 | 179,039 |
| Wednesday, August 26 | 66 (+226) |
292 | 11,571 | 11,851 | 137,765 | 138,045 | 179,620 | 181,267 |