Child protection advocates are worried that the COVID-19 pandemic led to a spike in child-abuse cases in South Dakota and that the abuse of children was more severe than in the past. They are also concerned that the pandemic led to an increase in child-on-child abuse that was more rare prior to the arrival of the coronavirus. Recent statistics are unlikely to tell the whole story of how child abuse changed during the pandemic, and in fact may obscure what experts are almost certain was a rise in abuse cases. The fact that some cases went unreported during the pandemic may have inadvertantly allowed some child abuse to continue unabated.