The Scouting Report: A weekly digest

Covid emergency ends, spoiled dogs, SDSU reservation tours, a garden festival

More than three years after the start of the Covid pandemic, the South Dakota Department of Health published its last weekly report on the disease. In the initial months of the pandemic, the department published daily data on new cases, deaths, hospitalizations and other metrics – although many of them, including new cases, became meaningless, especially with the advent of in-home testing. The reports then came weekly.

The end of weekly reporting follows the expiration of the federal public health emergency that came May 11.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also issued its final weekly Covid bulletin.

“The United States has mobilized and sustained a historic response to the COVID-19 pandemic,” the bulleting said. “The past three years have been highly challenging in many ways, but together we have made significant progress to reduce the impact COVID-19 has on the health of people and our communities.”