| USA TODAY NETWORK
New cases of coronavirus increased in South Carolina in the week ending Saturday, increasing 11.8%, with 8,130 reported cases. The previous week had 7,271 new cases.
South Carolina ranked 35th among the states where the coronavirus was spreading faster, shows an analysis by the USA TODAY Network of Johns Hopkins University data. In the past week, the United States added 727,154 reported cases of coronavirus, an increase of 30.7% over the previous week. Across the country, 49 states had more cases in the last week than in the previous week.
In South Carolina, the worst weekly outbreaks per person occurred in Marlboro, Pickens and Newberry counties. Adding up the majority of new cases in general are Greenville County, with 1,101 cases; Richland County, with 617 cases; and Spartanburg County, with 617. The weekly case count has increased by 35 counties from the previous week. The worst increases from the previous week’s pace were in York, Charleston and Greenville counties.
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The proportion of South Carolina test results that tested positive was 5.7% in the last week, compared to 5.9% in the previous week, shows a USA TODAY Network analysis of the COVID Tracking Project data. In the last week, 142,878 tests were administered; a week earlier, that number was 122,966. Experts say it is important to look at the proportion of tests that tested positive, not just the case count, to get a better idea of whether the rate of new infections is changing or whether differences in tests are playing a role.
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The World Health Organization says that places should be carrying out sufficient tests for less than 5% of that positive result. Places where the percentage is higher may find it difficult to complete contact tracking soon enough to prevent the virus from spreading.
Across South Carolina, cases fell in 11 counties, with the biggest declines in Pickens, Abbeville and Spartanburg counties.
In the state, 80 people died in the past week. In the previous week, 142 people died.
A total of 184,742 people in South Carolina have tested positive for the coronavirus since the pandemic began, and 4,015 people have died from the disease, data from Johns Hopkins University show. In the United States, 9,860,558 people tested positive and 237,113 people died.