Thread by @bymorganmatzen

SCOOP: "Less than 25" figure that our state epidemiologist shared today about Sturgis covid cases is literally 24 cases. Two public notices so far & 22 cases were out-of-state residents tested at Monument Health.

What about cases in schools? (thread) 1/x
rapidcityjournal.com/news/local/sta…

There are “less than 40 total cases” among K-12 school students, teachers and staff in 19 different districts that have “at least one case” across the state. But the DOH won’t release specific school names or district names as part of their biweekly media updates. 2/x

How will parents know about the cases? Well, schools will issue their own notifications to students and parents when cases are identified in schools.

Okay, but how will the general public and reporters know about the cases? 3/x

From my experience so far in 5+ months of this pandemic, I've received word of most cases through the RCJ tip line and the occasional social media buzz. 4/x

I learned about three athletes in RCAS who got covid by listening in on a school board meeting where it was casually mentioned by athletic directors. Link: 5/x rapidcityjournal.com/news/local/edu…

A tip to the RCJ line about a volleyball player that tested positive & may have exposed players at tryouts turned into this story: 6/x
rapidcityjournal.com/news/local/edu…

A BHSU student who tweeted at me was able to share info about this most-recent case there by forwarding me an email that was only sent to the campus community: 7/x rapidcityjournal.com/news/bhsu-empl…

A Facebook commenter told us about the BHSU tradition of hosting bikers in the dorms: 8/x rapidcityjournal.com/news/local/edu…

The Camp Judson stories came from multiple news tips to my DMs, email and the RCJ tip line: 9/x rapidcityjournal.com/news/local/sta…

This story about a dermatology clinic seeing some cases came from a news tip, too. Notably, some of them weren't wearing masks at work: 10/x rapidcityjournal.com/news/local/sta…

I like getting ALL the info, ALL the time and having transparency 24/7. But it's safe to say we can't always get that from some sources and a lot of our coverage of covid spread comes from these news tips, DMs or social media comments that we have to follow up on. 11/x

So if you hear of anything, keep letting your local reporter know. In some cases, the "why aren't you covering this" is because we don't know about it. It's getting harder to track every last case, business closure and exposure event in the state as the pandemic drags on. 12/x

It's tiring work, too. Sometimes you don't hear back for days, or at all. Sometimes the PIO or source will tell you it's just gossip and can't confirm it. 13/x

Sometimes it's a burden to track these things down because at some point, with the way things are going, every last business/school/workplace could realistically see a case. No one is immune. We could all get it at some point, sadly. 14/x

Morals of the story: I love transparency. Keep sending us news tips (link here). Subscribe to your local newspaper (link in next tweet). 15/x rapidcityjournal.com/forms/contact/…

Subscribe: 16/x rapidcityjournal.com/members/join/#…

You can also send news tips to my Twitter DMs and my email: [e-mail]

It could be just the 22, not 24, because maybe the public notices included the folks who got tested at Monument. But still, the math tidbit and the way their state of residence wasn’t explicitly stated in the public notices is interesting. Now another exposure was announced too.