PIERRE, S.D. (KELO) — Governor Kristi Noem and other public officials can’t give out names or other details about who’s been tested for COVID-19.

Why? South Dakota law doesn’t allow it.

A statute specifically prohibits the release of nearly all information on mandatory communicable disease reports that come from physicians, laboratories, and institutions.

That’s according to Maggie Siedel, the governor’s policy director.

The ban has been in effect since at least 1989.

In 2003, at the request of the state Department of Health, lawmakers approved an exception to prosecute people for purposely spreading HIV.

That came after a 2002 case involving a student at Si Tanka University in Huron.

On Sunday, the governor announced six new positive tests of the coronavirus in Beadle County.

Huron is the county seat.

Beadle County now has 10 of South Dakota’s 21 cases of COVID-19.

The seventh new case is in Brown County.

For more information go to covid.sd.gov.