BISMARCK, ND (trfnews.i234.me) North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum is cautioning residents that stopping the spread of COVID-19 is your responsibility.
we want we’ve heard there’s a lot of stuff going on social media we’ve asked people to be very clear about particularly with information related to the virus to make sure that they’re getting good information one of those some of those calls or based on trying to suggest that the data that we have in North Dakota would indicate that we’re somehow putting our neighboring states at risk or that we’re not being responsible by having more government mandated action and and so we just want to run through a few numbers and the first of all is it’d be good for people to understand what our positive percent rate is this is the percentage of new cases that come in the test positive out of the test that we’re taking today twelve new cases on a three hundred fifty-three tests and when I say today this was just in a in a a little less than a nine hour period from yesterday between 3:00 p.m. and midnight that if we go back and we take a look at our hour rate for the entire time the hundred and fifty-nine positives out of nearly five thousand tests that’s a positive rate of 3.2 percent we’re tied for the fourth lowest of all the 50 states the only states with a lower rate are Hawaii New Mexico Alaska were tied with South Dakota and Vermont at 3.2 and Minnesota’s rate slightly higher than us at 3.2 or 3.3 percent slightly higher but were among the best states I mean saying best meaning in terms of we have a low percentage of positives relative test what does that mean does it mean that does it necessarily mean that we’ve got less of a spread or does it mean we’re doing a better job of testing part of the answers it means we’re doing a better job of testing and take a look at that next where where we’ve completed five point nine tests per thousand population and that’s similar to other proactive states that are with high testing and low positives Utah would be ahead of us New Mexico at six point three Hawaii at six point three so again we’re in the top ten and with the plans that we got in place we want to stay in the top ten and keep moving up towards number one in terms of really doing a great job on testing so again success here depends on slowing the spread of the virus and I and if somebody is say you know North Dakota got more tests per capita than Minnesota well we’ve done almost twice as many tests per capita as Minnesota so of course we’re gonna have more positives per capita because we’re doing more testing per capita but again a key here is for everybody following the rules about keeping physical distance is the the number one thing we want to spread either stop stop doing and on that it was you know mentioned to me today on one of the calls that in some of our smaller communities or counties where there is where there’s no positives reported yet doesn’t mean that the virus isn’t there and if somebody thinks that go into the Cenex and having coffee with nine people sitting closely together with your old crowd and then there have less than 10 then you’re following the rules no it’s less than ten people and everybody that’s there is more than six feet apart or if you’re having a coffee at the settings and then you head over to the elevator and talk to a different group of eight or nine people again you you could be in a position where you’re you’re a spreader and may not even know it because again you can be asymptomatic having meaning no symptoms and spread it so again even in our communities where you may think it hasn’t reached you yet please act as if it’s already there because the the data on the testing is at least ten days behind and also under reports the number of positives
North Dakota Governor Urges Personal Responsibility in Preventing Spread of COVID-19
