Gov. Noem's roadmap to get South Dakota 'back to normal’
'We never did shut down our businesses, we gave them an opportunity to be innovative,' says South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem discussing her plan to return to' normal'
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Gov. Kristi Noem said on Tuesday that while South Dakota is on its way to getting "back to normal," more people are expected to become infected with coronavirus, with the numbers peaking in mid-June.
“Our projections in South Dakota have always been based around how we can take care of people should they need to be in the hospital, should they need ventilators, and we won’t hit our peak need until mid-June,” Noem told “Fox & Friends.”
SOUTH DAKOTA GOV. NOEM UNVEILS ‘BACK TO NORMAL’ PLAN, SAYS IT PLACES POWER IN ‘HANDS OF THE PEOPLE’
Noem said that South Dakota never shut down their businesses nor tell people to shelter in place.
"What we did was give them an opportunity to be innovative, to care for their customers and employees and, so I think South Dakota is doing better than a lot of other states as far as slowing down the spread but also our economy and small business owners."
Noem also said that they are advising the vulnerable population to stay home while allowing people to continue the economic activity that they need to survive.
As some states loosen lockdown restrictions in a bid to set the nation's battered economy on the road to recovery, President Trump has endorsed a state-by-state approach. He predicted at a Fox News virtual town hall on Sunday that a coronavirus vaccine could be available by December.
"I think we'll have a vaccine by the end of the year," Trump told moderators Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, saying he was "very confident" in the assessment. "We'll have a vaccine much sooner rather than later."
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Noem said that she advised South Dakota residents to change their behavior until everything is “under control.”
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“We’re feeling better every day because we have more testing, we have more knowledge, and understand the science of this virus more. That all prepare us to deal with this in the future. And I told them all to be flexible. We have to continue to be nimble to make adjustments.”
The state saw a large outbreak at one on the country’s largest pork processing facilities in Sioux Falls. The Smithfield Foods plant partially reopened Monday after being shut down for two weeks following positive COVID-19 tests for more than 850 workers.
Fox News Dom Calicchio contributed to this report.
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