South Dakota Pork, Fake News

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/04/another-dishonest-smear-by-the-washington-post.php

UPDATE: In observing comments on FB I realize that many failed to understand this post. I will attempt to simplify:

1. READ THE LINKED Power Line post! They are MUCH better writers than I am! 
2. The **KEY** is that WaPo converts an obvious correct action by Noem into a fake political issue. The plant was/is essential, the path of CDC, the state, and Smithfield is to quickly re-open! 
3. The responses to the post in general indicate that the desire of many responders is to keep this in the political vs practical realm. There is even a desire by many to obfuscate a very simple issue by linking it to Michigan, having political parties, etc. Politics inhibits action! 
4. I hope and pray that we can ALL agree that food is essential! There is no life without risk. The plant, nor the country can get back to production of food without risk. "Risk free" is not an option! 

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So WaPo says the nasty SoDak governor Kristi Noem has resisted the call to lock down, and now SoDak is one of "the nation's largest Corona hotspots"!

Let's give that a tiny sniff -- all numbers from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/




So, this isn't so hard ... NY 11,148 cases per million, SD 1,351 ... SD is the 16th hottest "hot spot" in the US ranked by cases per million (which I use because it is a valid measure, it's 40thj if you use raw cases). Of course "cases" is pretty meaningless  ... try DEATHS per million SD is 45th "hottest", NY,  NJ,  CT,  LA,  MI,  MA lead that list as well.

For contrast, if you take the top 10 by cases/million, you find that Corona is remarkably concentrated in the US. It isn't very hard to tell that is something the MSM doesn't want us to pay much attention to. "Look at SD folks! It is governed by a REPUBLICAN and it is TERRIBLE!

So the political party of the governor has an effect on Corona response? Let's check that:
New York -- Andrew Cuomo (D)
Louisiana -- John Bel Edwards (D)
New Jersey -- Phil Murphy (D)
Massachusetts -- Charlie Baker(R
Connecticut -- Ned Lamont (D)
Rhode Island -- Gina Raimondo(D)
DC -- Muriel Bowser. (D)
Michigan -- Gretchen Whitmer(D)  
Pennsylvania -- Tom Wolf(D)
Delaware -- John Carney(D)

I'm certain that there is NO correlation there! Probably MA is in this list due to the incompetent R governor. It seems crystal clear!  ( ranked by cases/million)

So why DID Smithfield close the plant?

Next: the Smithfield story is actually an interesting one, but the Post tells us essentially nothing about it. First of all, the Sioux Falls facility is massive. It has 3,700 employees, of whom fewer than 10% have tested positive for COVID-19. The Sioux Falls facility is one of the main pork producers in the U.S., turning out around 18 million servings of bacon, pork chops, etc., per day. You may wonder, why were so many diagnostic tests performed on employees at that plant? The answer is that Smithfield implemented an aggressive program, in partnership with two major hospital systems, whereby anyone who entered or left the facility was questioned and had his or her temperature taken. Anyone who reported having a cough, etc., or who showed an elevated temperature was tested for COVID-19.

So, if you do aggressive testing, you find more cases!

The whole Powerline as well as WaPo article is worth a read. Naturally, WaPo, with their motto "We Worship Darkness" follows this to it's "root cause" ... TRUMP! If you only get your news from articles like this in the WaPo, it would seem clear that Republican Governors are a major cause of the spread of Corona! 

But the governor continued to resist. Instead, she used a media briefing Monday to announce trials of a drug that President Trump has repeatedly touted as a potential breakthrough in the fight against the coronavirus, despite a lack of scientific evidence.

Yup,  as experts castigated Trump in late January as being too aggressive, the constant is always "Trump is wrong" -- and as you can see, the media is always trustworthy!