January 28, 2024: COVID Monthly Data Update

County and State Data Updates

Data files by county are available for download on the SDDOH dashboard and the weekly hospitalization and death data are shown below.  Numbers for the last couple of weeks may be incomplete.  The case data are significantly underreported since home test results are not included; the graphs depicting newly diagnosed cases for South Dakota and Brookings are available in the PDF. 

South Dakota:

Brookings:

Below are the cumulative number of COVID cases per 100,000 by time for the 10 counties with the most populated cities.  Codington, Davison, and Pennington counties continue to have the highest cumulative rate of COVID.

Hospitalizations 

Below is a national map showing new hospital admission rates per 100,000 population by county for the week ending January 20^th.  (link)

Vaccines

Vaccines are important to protect yourself and to avoid spreading preventable diseases to other people in your community.  The CDC’s 2024 recommendations for adult immunizations can be found here.

Fifteen to 19.9% of South Dakotans (all ages, both sexes) were up to date with COVID vaccines as of September 12, 2023 (link). 

Wastewater SARS-CoV-2

The maps below show the SARS-CoV-2 virus levels for a two-week period in both November 2023 and January 2024.  More information on wastewater surveillance can be found here.  

November 6-20, 2023:

January 8 – January 22, 2024

Variants

The JN.1 variant is estimated to be the predominant variant nationally.  Regional projections can only be made for regions with more than 300 sequences determined over two weeks.  Our region (DHHS Region 8, including Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming) did not have enough samples sequenced to be able to estimate the percentages of the different variants beyond the end of December (second graph below).  However, the U.S. data indicates that the JN.1 percentage will continue to grow. (link)

Currently, there is no evidence that the JN.1 variant causes more severe disease, and symptoms include sore throat, congestion, fevers, chills, and fatigue.

For more information on basic epidemiological principles, refer to the list of links to the “Epi 101” videos that were done with the City of Brookings (link). 

Take care of yourself and each other.