South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem Stumps for Trump While This Boy Mourns His Stepdad
Even as South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem continued to dismiss calls for a mask mandate, declared the pandemic under control, and insisted the state’s hospitals have plenty of room, Doug Raysby of Sioux Falls died of COVID-19 without getting the ICU bed his doctor said he needed.
“I think that people really recognize that leadership has consequences,” Noem told Fox News on Oct. 21, the day of Raysby’s death. “And what we're doing in South Dakota is Republican leadership.”
Raysby’s viewing was four days later, on the same weekend Noem hosted a mass gathering in Sioux Falls that included an indoor concert, the latest of a series of events she has endorsed in defiance of CDC protocols. Raysby’s 6-year-old stepson, Kalvin, known as Nugget, stood silent before the open coffin and placed a pencil drawing of the family inside.