South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem asked her voters to tackle her “positive pants” and use optimism as a tool to fight the coronavirus.
Noem said that during a recent visit to a Sioux Falls classroom, a message fell on a bulletin board in a fourth-grade classroom.
“It said ‘Put on your positive pants.’ “That message reminded me of a lesson that is often easy to forget: an optimistic outlook can be enormously helpful in meeting life’s challenges,” the Republican governor said in a statement last week. true in the fight against COVID-19. “
South Dakota is among several states with no statewide mask mandates. Guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention state that everyone should wear a face mask to help limit the spread of coronavirus.
Noem said in her message that because parents and people with pre-existing health conditions are particularly vulnerable to becoming seriously ill with the virus, “that leaves 95% of the population at no risk of serious infection.”
She also claimed that more people in her state have died from accidental injuries than from COVID-19 in the past five months.
“There is a risk associated with everything we do in life,” the mayor said. “We reduce risks by taking good precautions when we get in our cars, when we run farms, and when we make choices about what we eat and how much we exercise. The same should be true about life when we get back to normal.”
She concluded, ‘That’s what we’re thinking about’ putting on our positive pants. ‘We need to emphasize facts, not fear. Let’s tell the story of what works in the fight against this virus, and let’s continue this together. “
Like a majority of the states, South Dakota is struggling to contain the spread of the virus. More than 8.6 percent of the state’s coronavirus testing administrations have returned positive, according to a rolling seven-day count by Johns Hopkins University on Friday. The World Health Organization’s benchmark for business reopening is 5 percent.
South Dakota, which has erupted at some meat processing plants, had about 10,000 cases of coronavirus and 150 deaths by Friday, according to a state Department of Health tally.
The state held an outdoor meeting last month by President Donald Trump.
Last week, hundreds of thousands of motorcycle enthusiasts gathered in the small town of Sturgis, South Dakota, for the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, despite concerns about the virus among city residents.
The event included a concert by Smash Mouth.
