Via The Guardian, a long, scathing report:South Dakota gripped by pandemic amid Kristi Noem's no-mask approach. Excerpt:
Isolating herself from family after a Covid-19 diagnosis on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, grandmother Cheryl Angel had few options for safe shelter and ended up far afield traipsing from one lonely hotel room to another.
“Our tribe didn’t have anything set up, and if it weren’t for my relatives, I would have died in there,” she said.
Relatives made two-hour drives to leave breakfast and supper outside her impromptu isolation ward, while inside she followed instructions to use a steroid inhaler four times a day and learned to inject herself with an epinephrine medication when she felt faint.
She vowed that if she survived the deadly disease, she would do all she could to help others receive better treatment, as South Dakota fell further into the grip of the coronavirus pandemic.
By the time her two sons caught coronavirus this fall, Angel had recovered and become involved in a grassroots community encampment taking care of homeless fellow Native Americans on Sioux land on the outskirts of Rapid City, in the west of the state.
Physician Nancy Babbitt, who agreed to supervise training for coronavirus testing at the settlement, Camp Mniluzahan, lamented the heightened risks such vulnerable residents are facing amid state governor Kristi Noem’s determinedly hands-off pandemic policy – including being the only state without a mask mandate to curb infection.
“My experience dealing with Covid-19 in South Dakota is one of failed leadership. Our governor has made it clear it’s up to the people, so we have to come up with creative ideas to help stop the spread,” Babbitt said.
