CORONAVIRUS cases in South Dakota increased by a staggering 800 percent in two weeks after the governor refused quarantine measures – and the outbreak has apparently put the country's meat supply in jeopardy.

There were 129 cases in the state on April 1, according to The New York Post, and Gov. Kristi Noem did not order residents to stay at home.

The positive cases has ballooned to 988, including an alarming cluster at a large pork-processing plant.

Noem, a Republican, said it was not up to the government to determine whether to exercise people's "right to work, to worship and to play," according to The Washington Post.

"Or to even stay at home."

She added during a press briefing earlier this month: "South Dakota is not New York City."

New York City has been hit particularly hard by the coronavirus, but so has South Dakota in the last several weeks.

Of the nearly 1,000 people who tested positive, 300 are workers at Smithfield Foods. Six people in the state have died from the virus.

The company said it was closing its Sioux Falls plant indefinitely.

“A shelter-in-place order is needed now. It is needed today,” said Sioux Falls Mayor Paul TenHaken, according to The Washington Post.

Instead, Noem announced during a press conference on Monday that there would be trials for the drug hydroxychloroquine.

"It's an exciting day," she said, according to The Washington Post.

The South Dakota State Medical Association urged the governor to force a quarantine in a letter written on April 3.

“A stay-at-home order would give our health professionals the necessary time and resources to manage this pandemic,’ the group wrote.

“We may soon be facing the challenges and hardships being seen in New York and other cities if a shelter in place order is not issued immediately.”

The Smithfield Foods plant in Sioux Falls employs nearly 4,000 people and produces 18 million servings of pork per day.

“The closure of this facility, combined with a growing list of other protein plants that have shuttered across our industry, is pushing our country perilously close to the edge in terms of our meat supply,” said Kenneth Sullivan of Smithfield.

“It is impossible to keep our grocery stores stocked if our plants are not running.”

A 30-year-old Mexican immigrant named Lily said she worked at the plant for 13 years but quit due to coronavirus fears.
“There is no social distance,” she told The Washington Post.

“Many people are sick. Not only in the plant – in the whole city."

South Dakota is a state of 900,000 people, with 200,000 in Sioux Falls.

“The virus doesn’t know boundaries," TenHaken told the newspaper.

"The virus doesn’t know city limits.

"We’re responding the best we can at the local level but quite honestly with a limited tool set.”

There have been more than 600,000 coronavirus cases in the US, and two million around the world.

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