Screenshot from the city's Facebook page during Monday's news conference.
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO.com) — “Patience.”
Mayor Paul TenHaken said during a Bi-weekly coronavirus news conference Monday afternoon that patience is the word of the day concerning when coronavirus vaccines will become available.
The mayor and doctors from Sanford and Avera discussed the availability of vaccines and the coronavirus numbers over the past two weeks.
TenHaken said that the last two weeks have shown a decrease in the number of daily reported COVID-19 cases, number of active cases and number of hospitalizations in Sioux Falls’ hospitals.
“There has been not much surge if any in the number of cases since the holidays and that’s a positive thing,” said TenHaken. He also said there is strong economic news and to keep supporting local businesses.
Both Dr. Mike Wilde of Sanford and Dr. David Basil of Avera reported seeing definite changes in public behavior versus October and November that have affected the coronavirus numbers including wearing masks.
Both hospitals report an increase in testing efforts. Dr. Wilde said some people are now getting their first and second dosage of the vaccination.
“Both North and South Dakota are doing a tremendous job in getting the vaccine out to the people,” said Dr. Wilde.
Even though Avera hospital did not see a holiday surge in coronavirus numbers, there has been no decrease in hospitalizations.
In the past two weeks, there has been a slow steady decrease in overall numbers in the region, but one-third of Avera remains full of COVID-19 patients along with their regular patients.
And that concerns Dr. Basil as other parts of the country are surging.
“I really feel we’re in a race to get enough vaccine and enough people vaccinated before a variant comes or before people start getting Spring Fever so we’re feeling a real sense of urgency about getting people vaccinated,” said Basil.
We also learned during today’s city news conference that there are two new strains of the coronavirus that now exist.
One out of South Africa and one out of the United Kingdom.
According to Dr. Wilde, the current vaccines appear to be effective against these new strains.
Log on to covid.sd.gov for more information.
