A federal judge brought a rhetorical blow to South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, and said in a sentence this week that the state has done “little, or anything” to prevent COVID-19 from devastating the state. state. The Sioux waterfalls Argus Leader reports that U.S. District Judge Charles Kornmann ordered a state court to stop using the pandemic as an excuse to delay a defendant’s trial. Then he went to look for the state’s response to the crisis itself. “South Dakota has done little, or anything, to reduce the spread of the virus,” he wrote. “South Dakota cannot” take advantage “of its own failures to follow the facts and scientific guarantees by introducing general denials of the rights of speedy trials.” Noem has opposed mask warrants and other blocking measures, even when his state accumulated one of the worst per capita infection rates in the country. “His example encourages South Dakotans not to wear masks,” the judge wrote. “South Dakota is now a very dangerous place to live because of the spread of COVID-19.”
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