COLUMBIA, South Carolina – At a hospital in Charleston, emergency room nurses are recycling used N95 masks while doctors in other departments work on COVID-19 units. In another, the shortage forced health professionals to work unprecedented overtime. In all, more than 75 percent of hospital beds are already occupied across the state of Palmetto – and the tide of new coronavirus cases is only growing.
Simply put, South Carolina hospitals are under siege.
“We’ll be worse than New York,” a Charleston ER nurse told The Daily Beast. “But at least in New York, people took the virus seriously. Here, we are in a war zone that people refuse to accept. “
One of the first states to loosen restrictions on coronavirus amid the pandemic, South Carolina is now struggling to deal with its COVID-19 crisis. But while the growth rate of infected residents has exploded in the past week – making the state one of the newest outbreaks of the deadly disease – many residents continue to ignore the problem.
Last week, thousands of sailors gathered on Lake Murray to declare their support for President Trump, while organizers of a motorcycle event in Myrtle Beach next week say they have no intention of modifying or canceling the annual tradition.
“Who’s going to be home? If you look at the roads here, no one stays home, ”Sonny Copeland, founder of Myrtle Beach Bike Week, who usually attracts thousands of motorcycle enthusiasts, told the Daily Beast. “Here in South Carolina, we are acting normally from day one. We live in real life – this is not something that politicians want us to do. ”
To date, about 898 people have died and 50,548 others have been infected with the virus in South Carolina – with about one in five tests returning a positive result. Overnight, the state experienced a 20 percent increase in the number of new cases, with about 1,725 positive tests, while the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control announced on Thursday that more than 75 percent percent of total hospital beds are occupied. Of the 7,991 hospital beds currently occupied across the state, about 1,433 of them are in use by patients with COVID-19. South Carolina’s mostly black communities were hardest hit, according to media reports and statistics from the state health agency DHEC.
Anthony Alberg, an epidemiologist at the University of South Carolina at Columbia, told The Daily Beast that he is not surprised that the state has not failed to contain the pandemic – since it reopened very early.
“In the beginning, South Carolina took the essential steps necessary to flatten the curve,” said Alberg. “The problem reopened very early, which led to a huge increase in cases of COVID-19 that cannot be counted exclusively due to the increase in tests for active SARS-CoV-2 infections.”
The current increase in cases in South Carolina is so severe that it is now one of the three worst coronavirus outbreaks in the world. On a New York Times study of the number of daily infections between June 28 and July 5, Arizona and Florida are the two most affected areas in the world – followed by South Carolina, the Kingdom of Bahrain and Louisiana. Hospitals are overloaded, understaffed and undersupplied – unable to keep up with what researchers believe is the “tipping point” before the state loses control of the pandemic.
“We have completely lost control of the situation in South Carolina – and it is completely embarrassing,” Helmut Albrecht, chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of South Carolina at Columbia and Prisma Health, told The Daily Beast. “In the medical community, we feel that we are being completely abandoned.”
Some doctors insist that the increase was inevitable, given the state authorities’ response to the virus. Apart from the closing of schools, more or less in the first month of the spread of the coronavirus in South Carolina, there was very little in the form of a state effort to slow the pathogen. In late March, the Republican-led state government actively discouraged local public health efforts. “We affirm that local governments cannot exercise the emergency powers delegated to the governor by the general assembly,” said Attorney General Alan Wilson on March 27. The general assembly is the South Carolina state legislature.
Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin, a Democrat, ignored Wilson’s memo and continued local measures of social detachment. “The actions taken by the city are entirely within our authority,” said Benjamin. Republican Governor Henry McMaster eventually gave in and allowed cities to implement public health measures, while taking some modest measures to impose social distance across the state – such as closing some businesses.
But many Southern Carolinians were irritated by the restrictions. The first major public protest against social distance measures in South Carolina took place in Columbia on April 24. A few hundred people, many from outside the city, marched or protested their cars.
On April 24, McMaster was one of the first state officials to begin easing restrictions on coronavirus, announcing an executive order that allowed most retail and department stores to reopen with social distance. The request came only after three weeks of “real closure,” said a Charleston emergency room physician.
“No one really had time to take this seriously,” said the emergency room physician, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of professional retaliation.
At the height of social detachment in South Carolina in early April, DHEC estimated that population mobility has dropped 42% from normal. In comparison, in New York City, mobility fell by more than about 90% at the end of March, although the metrics used to measure mobility varied in the two assessments.
“The government’s mentality was that the pandemic in progress was not a big problem and people continued to live life normally,” added the emergency room doctor. “People went to the beach, traveled – all without adequate social distance and wearing a mask. Now, our hospitals are paying the price. “
The emergency room doctor, who works in one of the largest hospitals in Charleston, a city that has seen four deaths overnight and 325 new cases, also said that hospital staff are being forced to treat patients without adequate protective equipment and work overtime.
“Things will only get worse as the summer goes on. People flock here to go to the lakes, to Myrtle Beach, ”added the Charleston doctor. “We are all really unprepared.”
Myrtle Beach, a popular tourist destination along the coast of South Carolina, appears to be one of the most troubled areas in the state of Palmetto. A spring break destination with a large elderly community, Myrtle Beach has contributed to increasing COVID-19 cases across the country – including 50 cases in Philadelphia.
An internal state report obtained by ABC News foretells that the outbreak of COVID-19 in South Carolina has no end in sight. The July 4 report, which warned of the state’s hot-spot status, particularly in coastal counties, said that in Horry County, where Myrtle Beach is located, “cases continue to rise sharply” with “widespread travel to area contributing to the cases. “In Charleston,” there is no sign that cases are decreasing, “according to the report.
Local residents, however, refuse to allow the pandemic that killed more than 133,000 people across the country to spoil their summer.
“We are not making changes. Everything is going according to plan, ”said Copeland, 61, of the 81st Annual Myrtle Beach Bike Week.
The bicycle rally, which was moved from May to July due to concerns about the coronavirus, will begin on July 13 and will bring together thousands of motorcyclists, residents and enthusiasts from outside the city. Last May, Copeland said that about 250,000 to 300,000 motorcyclists attended the event. Even the authorities are not terribly concerned about the implications of such a large meeting, telling local media that, if residents are not comfortable, they have the option of staying at home.
“From my point of view, we don’t need the damn government to tell us what to do,” said Copeland. “We are smart enough to take care of ourselves. We are smart enough to know how to take care of ourselves, to distance ourselves when we ride and we have common sense ”.
“We are not a bunch of teenagers who are going to hug and kiss on the beach,” he added. “It’s about riding a motorcycle, being in the wind. It is about enjoying life and riding. It is common sense. ”
Albrecht believes that major events such as Bike Week are actively contributing to the flow of hospitalizations in the state. Calling the community’s carelessness “worrying,” the doctor added that South Carolina’s biggest problem at the moment is “community outreach” and “open things that shouldn’t be open.”
“Leadership is not just making certain good or bad decisions, but also leading by example,” said Albrecht, adding that he is “pro-opening” and believes that it is now the personal responsibility of the citizen to ensure that the State does not go free. autumn. “At the moment, it comes down to regaining control over the spread of the infection. It is not rocket science. It doesn’t have to be that way. “
So far, South Carolina does not have a mask mandate, despite recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. McMaster’s office did not respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment on the increase in COVID-19 in South Carolina, but the governor had previously criticized some preventive measures, calling the mask orders “impractical” and “ineffective”.
“There is no power on Earth that can follow everyone in the surrounding state to make sure they are following the rules,” McMaster said at a news conference on June 26.
While the state government has practically surrendered to the virus, cities continue to struggle. Columbia, Charleston, Myrtle Beach and more than two dozen other counties have, since the end of June, passed decrees requiring people to wear masks indoors in public. City-level rules include many exceptions – and street-level enforcement is weak. Columbia has delegated the application of the mask rule to firefighters and parking meters instead of making it a political priority.
For the Charleston emergency room nurse, the lack of strong government action is directly related to the terrible ICU situation in her hospital.
“Asking people to follow the CDC guidelines is not going to change anything,” she said. “At the end of the day, people no longer want to stay indoors, wear a mask or stop living their lives. People can be selfish – and that choice is seen every day in my crowded hospital. “