Residents of 34 States Advised Not to Travel, South Dakota Not Included

Residents of two-thirds of the states in America should stay put during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new report.

Using seven-day averages of coronavirus infection rates, the Harvard Global Health Institute has generated a risk-assessment map, that ranks each state's danger level for spreading the virus.

Officials are urging residents of states in the top two categories, red and orange, to not travel at this time.

South Dakota is not among the states with the highest risk.

In all, 13 states (Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Arizona, Tennessee, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Texas, Idaho, Arkansas, and Oklahoma) are in the highest risk (red) category, which has 25 or more new positive COVID-19 cases every day per 100,000 people. The number of red states has more tripled since the beginning of July.

Five of South Dakota's neighboring states (Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, and North Dakota) are among an additional 21 states (which also includes Alaska,  California, Delaware, Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Utah, West Virginia, and Wisconsin) that are classified as orange, with ten or more new COVID-19 cases per day per 100,000 people.

That leaves 16 states, including South Dakota, in the yellow category with between one and nine new daily cases of COVID-19 per 100,000 people.

None of the 50 states fall into the green category, which would signify that the virus is contained.

The no travel warnings come on the heels of a study published by the Policylab at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia which shows that travel is contributing to the spread of COVID-19 along major US travel corridors.