The city of Charleston extended its coronavirus emergency order and mask mandate to public spaces until April 14.
That decree will no longer include a curfew for restaurants and bars, so that it complies with the decisions that Governor Henry McMaster made earlier this month. But it will still allow city officials to apply a masking mandate to public buildings, restaurants and retail stores in the city.
There are still exemptions from this mask rule, including people who eat and drink in restaurants and bars. City Council members debated on March 9 how long to extend the mandate. Ultimately, they decided for another month to give more people a chance to be vaccinated.
The rules will continue to allow city officials to quote people who do not wear masks in public spaces.
Charleston County also voted to extend its mask term for 60 days on the night of March 9, the last of several extensions. The mandate applies to unincorporated areas of the county.
Although the flow of vaccines to South Carolina appears to be increasing, as the state moves on to its next phase of eligibility, many hospitals report that availability is varied and there is an ongoing struggle with inconsistent deliveries.
In positive news for the state, almost 315,000 doses were given in the week of March 1, easily breaking the record for most vaccines administered in a single week.
Vaccine deliveries to the state are also higher than ever, with more than half a million consultations scheduled, according to the SC Department of Health and Environmental Control.
The trick is to know where to look for these doses, since the majority of the state’s population has become eligible – and thousands have started looking for vacancies – starting March 8.
The Pfizer vaccine, which is supplied mainly by hospitals, is much less available in South Carolina than the Modern vaccine, which is administered mainly by retail pharmacies.
Tidelands Health, which has vaccine clinics in Murrells Inlet and Georgetown, found that the newly eligible population, which tends to be younger than the previous groups, depends more on digital programming. On March 8, Tidelands saw about 2,500 appointments made, according to its chief operating officer, Gayle Resetar.
“We are definitely the most popular boy in school at the moment,” said Resetar.
Across the Grand Strand, the Conway Medical Center received less than 4,000 consultation requests in the first 24 hours, setting a record for a single day for the hospital.
Supply remains the biggest obstacle at Conway Medical Center, which will limit the delivery of vaccines to teachers to Horry County schools to 500 doses from March 12. The hospital predicts that it will need 4,000 doses to vaccinate all teachers.
In the interior of the state, a spokeswoman for Prisma Health said that vaccine nominations are “highly limited” as demand continues to exceed the health system’s supply. The same is true of the Spartanburg Regional Health System, where the hospital group said in a statement that demand from the first group remains high and Monday’s shift has caused an increase in requests for consultations. He was struggling to keep pace before the pool expanded and said that federal allocations are not enough to keep up with the increase.
That was not the case everywhere, with AnMed Health in Anderson County and Bon Secours St. Francis in Greenville each reporting on March 8 that some consultations remained open for the following weeks.
In Midlands, Lexington Medical Center said on March 8 that it received 7,000 first doses of vaccine for the week. The hospital did not know exactly how many of these doses are scheduled for people in the new phase of eligibility. A spokeswoman said the system registered a decline in demand for appointments with a large number available last week, before the opening of this last phase, giving the provider certainty that the newly eligible candidates were able to meet the schedule.
State figures
New cases reported: 425 confirmed, 36 probable.
Total cases in SC: 451,026 confirmed, 76,322 probable.
Positive percentage: 4.7 percent.
New reported deaths: Three confirmed.
Total deaths in SC: 7,751 confirmed, 1,012 probable.
Percentage of ICU beds occupied: 4.7 percent.
How does SC rank in vaccines administered by 100,000 people?
40 as of March 8, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Most affected areas
In the total number of new confirmed cases, Greenville County (62), Anderson County (38) and Charleston County (37) saw the highest totals.
What about the tri-county?
Charleston County had 37 new cases on March 9, while Berkeley had 23 and Dorchester had 12.
Deaths
Two of the new confirmed deaths reported were from people between the ages of 35 and 64 and one was in a patient aged 65 or over.
Hospitalizations
Of the 604 patients with COVID-19 hospitalized on March 9, 157 were in the ICU and 71 were using ventilators.
What do the experts say?
In a guidance issued on March 8, the CDC said that it is acceptable for people who are fully vaccinated to meet indoors in small meetings. The new guidelines apply to people who received both doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, or the single dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. In South Carolina, about 431,000 people met this requirement on March 7.
Nick Masuda contributed reporting from Myrtle Beach, Conor Hughes contributed from Greenville, and Jessica Holdman contributed from Columbia.