South Dakota avoids West Nile outbreak with 87 cases in 2025

Each summer, the invisible negotiation between human behavior, climate, and disease plays out across the American plains — and in 2025, South Dakota emerged from that negotiation in better shape than feared. Epidemiologists had projected more than 130 West Nile virus cases by year's end; the final count settled at 87, shaped by an inhospitable summer for mosquitoes and the quiet, cumulative choices of ordinary residents. Four people still died, a reminder that even a contained outbreak carries irreducible human weight. The outcome was not fate — it was the fragile product of weather, vigilance