COLOMBIA – Governor Henry McMaster said South Carolina deserves the highest marks for dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, saying its planned closure and the early reopening of companies kept the state’s economy thriving while others remained closed.
“I think we did as well or better than any other state in the country,” the Republican Party governor told the Post and Courier during a Pints & Politics event on March 25. “It would be an A. Maybe even an A-plus. “
Palmetto State was the last state in eastern Mississippi to issue an order to stay home last spring and one of the first to suspend the order.
His comments were made when South Carolina exceeded 8,000 coronavirus deaths and more than 461,000 cases on March 25.
“A lost life is a tragedy, but it was a pandemic. We didn’t know how to react, ”said McMaster.
SC Democratic Party chairman Trav Robertson told The Post and Courier that McMaster was politicizing the state’s response.
“I think it just shows that Henry McMaster lives in an alternate universe,” said Robertson on March 25. “South Carolina had one of the worst responses to the COVID pandemic in the United States, and statistic after statistic shows that. He is simply selling a line and will have to respond to voters for that. “
McMaster added that South Carolina has taken a collaborative approach when decisions are needed, meeting a panel of experts last spring under a task force called accelerateSC.
“People have jobs. There are small businesses that didn’t have to close, ”McMaster said during an interview with political reporters at the Post and Courier at Savage Ale Craft Works in West Columbia.
McMaster said other states were wrong in the early days of their response to the coronavirus.
“What they did with that is that they were closing things that didn’t need to be closed, like outdoor activities, for example, landscaping companies, just as an example,” said McMaster. “Some churches closed, if you can believe that, they arrested people who went to church to get married, it’s hard to believe, despite the First Amendment.”
McMaster also resisted criticism – including some from his own party, notably Senate majority leader Shane Massey of Edgefield – that the state did not give teachers priority status for a vaccine.
“Everyone wanted the vaccine to come back, but statistics and pronouncements from even the CDC indicated that the classroom is probably the safest working environment among them,” said McMaster. “The typical cashier at a grocery store sees more people in one day than an ordinary educator.”
Federal aid to allow the widespread purchase of personal protective equipment within schools made available last summer must also have alleviated concerns about the return of full-time classrooms, McMaster said.
“There is no evidence to support the need to close a school because of the virus,” he said.
Also in his conversation with the Post and the Courier’s political reporters, McMaster talked about his relationship with former Republican President Donald Trump, his views on Democratic President Joe Biden and which of the last two state flag models he favors.
Trump
McMaster, who has already received an endorsement for Trump’s re-election, said the former president will come to South Carolina to meet for the governor and “for others too”. McMaster did not say when or who else could be the focus of a Trump visit.
McMaster said he would be happy if Trump placed his presidential library in South Carolina or at least donated documents to the University of South Carolina or other colleges.
The governor said Trump should run for president again in 2024: “I know people don’t like some of the ways he talks. But I would say look at what he does because that’s what counts.”
If Trump does not seek another term, McMaster said his support for former governor Nikki Haley would depend on someone else in South Carolina running. US Senator Tim Scott, RS.C., was also mentioned for a 2024 bid.
Biden
McMaster said Biden is “different” now than when the men met years ago, when the governor worked for Senator Strom Thurmond.
“I have to say that the man at that time is not the same guy you see on television,” said McMaster. “He’s a little bit different.”
McMaster offered no further explanation during the Pints & Politics session.
After the event, McMaster said he was referring to Biden’s behavior.
“He was a happy man,” McMaster told The Post and Courier. “He was cunning, he was vigorous. He seems a little reticent now.
“Trump was a happy man. He’s like Reagan. They were very happy doing the job. I hope President Biden is happy doing the job, because he doesn’t look like that.”
SC Governor Henry McMaster points to the design of the state flag he prefers between the two finalists considered by lawmakers during the Post and Courier’s Pints & Politics event on March 25 in West Columbia.
State flag design
McMaster expressed his preference for a standardized state flag design, saying he liked an image selected this week by a SC Senate committee featuring a symmetrical palm. He said he liked the narrower, straighter trunk of the project on the palm.
A debate about which flag should become the state official after 80 years of inconsistency is in the Senate before going to the House.
Follow Adam Benson on Twitter @ AdamNewshound12.