Active COVID cases drop in South Dakota for first time in more than a month

A health care professional monitors a COVID-19 patient at Sanford Hospital.

The South Dakota Department of Health reported more recoveries from COVID-19 than new cases on Tuesday, the first time in more than a month active cases have decreased.

At the same time, occupied hospital beds by COVID-positive patients increased to 423, the most since the COVID wave that hit the state in 2020. Eighty-seven of those were in intensive care.

Three additional deaths were also reported. One person was age 60-69 and two were 80 or older. Two were women and one was a man. A total of 2,609 people with COVID have died in South Dakota.

The 2,829 new infections reported Tuesday included positive test results from Friday afternoon to Monday. Since the start of the pandemic, 221,372 South Dakotans have tested positive for the coronavirus.

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New cases included 507 in Minnehaha County and 135 in Lincoln County. Brown County had 151 and Codington County had 126.

There were 2,918 recoveries, and active cases dropped to 36,155.

An additional 748 people received a first dose of COVID vaccine. Sixty-three percent of the state's eligible population is fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Hospitalizations spike as active COVID cases drop in South Dakota