MYRTLE BEACH, SC (AP) – A former mayor of the city of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, died of complications from COVID-19, the city said on Sunday.
The city’s website says John Rhodes died on Saturday night.
Rhodes served as mayor from January 2006 to December 2017.
News of his death comes as the South Carolina Department of Health reports 4,584 new confirmed cases and 76 new confirmed deaths. These figures, published on Sunday, were current until midnight on Friday.
The latest figures bring the total number of confirmed cases in the state to over 350,000.
The Post and Courier reports that a record number of new cases were reported in the first two weeks of January.
The SC Department of Health and Environmental Control resolved a systems issue on Saturday that kept data incomplete last week, and authorities reported late that on January 8 the state set a daily record of 6,924 new cases of COVID-19, a substantial increase from previous records.