The actual future held a pandemic disaster. By October 5th, South Dakota’s Covid outbreak was raging and health officials labeled the state one of the most dangerous places in the U.S. That evening, a Covid-ravaged Trump was released from Walter Reed Hospital after millions of dollars in medical care. Trump saluted Marine One after it dropped him off at the White House. In Rapid City, one of Drake’s Covid patients gasped for air and watched this president on television. “I wish I could trade places with him,” said the man.
South Dakota’s death toll continued to rise. Noem stayed the course. By December 3rd, more than 1,000 South Dakotans had died due to complications from Covid, including 17 residents of the Estelline Nursing Home. Noem’s own grandmother died there on November 22nd. She tested negative.
And Noem? She was busy being Ted Cruz before Ted Cruz. The virus ravaged South Dakota, and Noem spent 12 days in October out of state, campaigning for Donald Trump. “It’s imperative we get President Trump back in the White House,” Noem told the Argus Leader in late October. In January, she campaigned in Georgia against two Democratic Senate candidates who she described in an op-ed as “communists.” Back home, South Dakota was moving up the charts. Noem’s state now ranks eighth in deaths per capita, with four times as many deaths than similarly populated but tightly compacted San Francisco. It really is quite an achievement.
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