Mayor votes down mask mandate as South Dakota’s numbers rise

By 10 p.m. on Tuesday, the city council in Sioux Falls, S.D., had heard from more than a dozen residents passionately arguing over a mask mandate in the largest city of a state where the novel coronavirus has been rising at a devastating rate.

As the eight commissioners cast their votes, though, it ended in a deadlock. That left the city’s Republican mayor, who had previously told people to “wear a dang mask,” to break the tie.

But he voted against it. “I believe the small uptick we’ll see in compliance is not worth the community division that this will create,” Sioux Falls Mayor Paul TenHaken told the audience.

The mask mandate’s failure comes as the state sees a steep rise in virus-related hospitalizations, new reported cases and deaths. Last week, South Dakota’s new daily reported cases rose byroughly 9%; the state also saw an 18.2% increase in daily reported deaths and a 26.5% uptick in hospitalizations.