An additional 180 South Dakotans were diagnosed with COVID-19 according to state health officials on their Wednesday, April 14 update.  166 of those new cases are in the Sioux Falls area.  The state's total now stands at 1,186.

Dakota News Now reports Wednesday's total is the state's largest one-day increase thus far. However, the state's death total due to COVID-19 remained at six.

The state also recorded an additional 68 recoveries, bringing that total to 329.

Six more cases required hospitalizations, bringing the total cases that have required hospitalization at some point to 51. Officials declined to say how many patients are currently hospitalized due to the disease.

Minnehaha County added 166 new cases.  Lincoln County added ten cases.  Combined, the two counties account for 999 cases or 85 percent of the state's total.

State Epidemiologist Joshua Clayton said 80 of the new cases are employees at Smithfield Foods, bringing the total cases involving employees there to 518.  Clayton adds that an additional 126 cases are connected to the Smithfield Outbreak.

The meat processing plant recently closed due to the outbreak, making national headlines as a COVID-19 'hotspot'.

South Dakota Health Secretary Kim Malsam-Rysdon told Dakota News Now that one of the new cases involved a prisoner at the Jameson Annex in the South Dakota State Penitentiary. The inmate has been quarantined.

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