AILSA CHANG, HOST: In November, South Dakota was leading the nation in COVID-19 deaths per capita. Dr. Shankar Kurra of the Monument Health Rapid City Hospital gave us a pretty grim outlook at the time.
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SHANKAR KURRA: The spread is uncontrolled. There is no mitigation or suppression. And what it has done is put a lot of strain on our capacity in the hospital.
CHANG: Now, two months later, cases and deaths are down, and South Dakota stands out for a different reason. It s one of the nation s leaders in vaccine distribution. So we thought we would check back in with Dr. Kurra.