The whole state became an unintentional experiment in herd immunity: the consequences are very painful.

Two out of five state residents were infected with the virus, turning South Dakota into an unintended experiment in herd immunity after Gov. Kristi Noem refused to introduce mandatory safety measures. In the reserve, these figures are just as dire or even more dire, and the painful experience of its inhabitants shows the high cost of producing antibodies through frivolous policies.

“We are in a terrible situation,” said H. Frazier, leader of Cheyenne River Beams, who installed checkpoints on roads and introduced quarantine to protect a community whose health had previously been plagued by poverty, obesity and diabetes . In the end, it still couldn’t stop the pandemic.

“We knew it was only a matter of time before the virus attacked us,” he said.

South Dakota reported the first cases of the virus in March, even before a massive outbreak at a meat processing plant.

For several months, the pandemic eroded the canals in the state’s population. Mr. Noem at the time refused to insist on wearing masks or restricting large gatherings. In August, he allowed a large motorcycle rally to take place in Sturgyia, some 225 kilometers from the main reserve city. In September, it provided $ 5 million in federal tourism advertising support to attract visitors.

Within a few weeks, the number of cases began to grow rapidly.

Noem said she did not impose her opinion but respected personal freedom, and her position made her a celebrity in the conservative media and catapulted her to potential candidates for the 2024 presidential election. In the end, what happened was supposed to happen: After receiving a long name, South Dakota residents avoided wearing masks and did not substantially abandon their normal lifestyle, as surveys and mobility data show. Even those who tried to follow the advice of the experts finally got carried away by the epic wave.

The state is still far from herd immunity, as epidemiologists understand it (mass immunity, according to epidemiologists, is acquired when at least 70% of the population has it and the virus no longer finds new fires and can no longer light up more severely). Independent scientist Youyang Gu estimated that as of mid-January, the state was approximately 42 percent infected. population (extrapolation based on 108,315 confirmed cases).

Antibody tests have shown that the official figures are far behind the truth.

In an interview with Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, Noem acknowledged that she had taken a “one size fits all” approach, but this allowed South Dakota residents to continue to “earn food.”

“Yes, we have experienced tragedies and losses, but we have survived more successfully than virtually any other state,” he said.

In the Frazier reserve, the benefits of this approach are less obvious. Of the approximately 8,000 people, more than 1,700 tested positive and 33 died. This shocked the relatively poor cattle community, whose homes are home to several generations of families, and accelerated the decline of the Lakota dialect, spoken mainly by people over 70 years of age.

“This pandemic has killed them,” said Beth Lone Eagle, a community attorney, mother and grandmother who lost three siblings in a row.

Mr. Frazier introduced the highway barrier right at the beginning of the pandemic, and as the situation began to deteriorate, efforts intensified. He turned the reserve motel into a quarantine facility and eventually ordered the closure of two communities. The tribe shared livestock so that everyone had something to eat while sitting in isolation.

However, this was not enough to avoid several brutal months. Just a couple of weeks ago, South Dakota recorded the sixth lowest number of cases per capita in the United States, according to the Covid Tracking Project. The daily rate, 18.3 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, is well below half the national average.

Julie Fischer, a former Georgetown University microbiologist who now works for the global nonprofit organization CRDF Global, noted that pandemic ebbs and floods are driven by human behavior. When family members or neighbors get sick, people take the risk more seriously, so their own reaction can lead to a reduction in cases.

“One possible explanation is that people who are at higher risk due to their own behavior, because they are naturally inclined to take risks or because they have no other option, have already had time to face the virus and become infected,” he said. J. Fischer. “It is not the same as herd immunity, but it reduces the number of people susceptible to the virus in the population.”

As epidemiologists often point out, it is not only government policy that matters, but also whether people follow it, and frivolous policies do not always cause disasters. Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, for example, has received widespread criticism for not being instructed to wear masks, but according to a survey by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, about 73 percent. Florida residents also report using them regularly (the national average is 77 percent).

South Dakota is an entirely different matter. Google’s mobility analysis shows that the people of South Dakota hardly restricted their movement during the pandemic. The flows registered in the commercial and leisure areas were normal for September, when the foundations of the outbreak were laid. Even in November, when the virus peaked, human flows fell only 10 percent compared to a normal year.

September 1 less than 30 percent. respondents said they always wear masks in public. According to the IHME, these figures have risen to around 58%, but they are still the lowest in the country.

B. Lone Eagle, who lives in the Cheyenne River Reservation, emphasized that the people of South Dakota behaved unethically without regard to basic public health guidelines.

“We have to isolate ourselves and our families, we have to follow all these things because the virus is transmitted by humans,” he said. “It’s not like I’m traveling from one place to another.”

She said her son worked at a checkpoint and that she herself had an instinct to protect vulnerable people, an instinct in the tribe that she said was genetically transmitted.

Some opponents of Covid’s strict measures said the public would have gained herd immunity more quickly if the virus had been allowed to spread freely. Ultimately, South Dakota’s strategy resulted in the death of approximately one in 500 residents, and significantly more were hospitalized or lived with long-term consequences.

Four northeastern states and Mississippi still have the highest death rates. In the Northeast, however, most people died in densely populated urban areas in March and April, when little was known about the virus and little research was done; The South Dakota peak came half a year later, when the effectiveness of the masks had already been proven and studies were widely available.

The Bloomberg Vaccine Tracker shows the state in fifth place in terms of vaccinations. However, it is far from clear that the virus’ rage is over. The new strains raise new questions about immunity, and only 69 percent. South Dakota residents say they are ready to be vaccinated, according to a Massachusetts Institute of Technology study presented through the IHME.

Also, knowledge about Covid-19 immunity is still being collected. A recent public health study in England found that surviving an infection protects against re-infection for at least five months. It is important to note that scientists say that people who have acquired antibodies can still transmit the virus.

Frazier’s current challenge is to speed up the vaccination of the most vulnerable members of the community until the virus has returned, which is not the easiest task on a reservation where communities are spread out for several hours. However, around 1988 people had already received at least one dose, which means that about a quarter of the population has been vaccinated to date.

Despite all the difficulties, the leader of the reserve is convinced that the figures would have been much more pessimistic had he not introduced the quarantine in November.

“At least we could move on,” Frazier said. “I think things could have been a lot worse.”