South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem is pandering to voters by criticizing fellow Republican Governors over how they handled COVID restrictions. It is believed she was targeting other Republicans who may be considering a run for the White House in 2024, such as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Texas Governor Greg Abbott.
Over the weekend at CPAC, Noem said:
“We’ve got Republican governors across this country pretending they didn’t shut down their states; that they didn’t close their regions; that they didn’t mandate masks… Now I’m not picking fights with Republican governors. All I’m saying is that we need leaders with grit. That their first instinct is to make the right decision. That they don’t backtrack and then try to fool you into thinking they never made the wrong decision.”
She reiterated this position on Twitter saying “personal responsibility was the best answer.”
South Dakota did not do any mandates. We trusted our people, gave them all the information and told them that personal responsibility was the best answer. https://t.co/46QTDPxnYl
— Kristi Noem (@KristiNoem) July 11, 2021
Public health expert Dr. Ashish Jha wrote, “Governor Kristi Noem praised her South Dakota response to the pandemic. It’s true that SD has achieved a high degree of population immunity. I wrote about the high cost South Dakotans paid Contrast it with Vermont and one thing becomes clear: It was all so unnecessary.”
And you can see it in the suffering of the people of the two states
Deaths per capita from COVID in VT vs SD
Nearly 6 times as many folks in SD died from COVID as VT
40/100K in VT versus 230/100K in South Dakota pic.twitter.com/tYsQLfFb3e
— Ashish K. Jha, MD, MPH (@ashishkjha) July 8, 2021
According to CNN, “The state had 14,090 cases per 100,000 people, ranking South Dakota with the third highest rate in the nation.” It ranked 10th as far as deaths are concerned with 230 deaths per 100,000 people.
South Dakota has one of the lowest population densities in the United States. It therefore has huge built-in advantages during a pandemic. Yet, because of Noem's awful leadership, it had one of the highest per capita death rates of any state–and still, she's bragging about it. https://t.co/pKTaSJTY1k
— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) July 12, 2021
https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1414336483767603202
*This post contains opinion and analysis