(CNN)To listen to South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem's speech over the weekend at the Conservative Political Action Conference was to hear a success story of massive proportions when it comes to the fight against Covid-19.
"South Dakota is the only state in America that never ordered a single business or church to close," said Noem. "South Dakota never instituted shelter in place, never mandated people wear masks."
"South Dakota never even defined what an essential business is," she said.
The crowd cheered these successes wildly! See, conservative governors like Noem didn't cower in fear from the virus and shut down their economies! And they were proven right!
It's a great story. But that's all it is. Because a look at the facts when it comes to how South Dakota fared in the coronavirus pandemic suggests that Noem's policies (or lack thereof) were something far short of the success narrative she sold to the CPAC crowd.
According to
CNN's data from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, South Dakota has the second highest number of cases per 100,000 residents in the country. (Only North Dakota has more.)
And when it comes to deaths from Covid-19 per 100,000 residents, South Dakota has the eighth highest total -- with 213 deaths for every 100,000 South Dakotans.
So, yeah.
The Point
: Noem's claims about what she didn't do during the pandemic are factually accurate. But so too is this: South Dakota is no one's coronavirus success story.