South Carolina’s coronavirus outbreaks with hundreds of cases ranging from urban centers to rural cities hours apart, showing how respiratory infection spreads quickly and easily.
Looking at the state’s health data divided by postal codes, it showed Camden, a small Midlands town famous for the annual festive horse races, leading the state in reported and possible COVID-19 cases.
Almost 150 miles south, Beaufort, a coastal Lowcountry town that is home to the Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, has the second highest number of cases in South Carolina.
Parts of two of the state’s largest cities, Columbia and Mount Pleasant, join Manning, a city in Pee Dee that is home to South Carolina’s fourth least populous county, to complete the state’s five largest hot spots.
Leaders from the state’s public health agency, the SC Department of Health and Environmental Control, said South Carolina residents should act as if the coronavirus had arrived in their neighborhood, even without a reported increase in local cases.
The agency started publishing the estimated daily number of possible cases in each postal code along with the cases reported this week.
“These estimated counts will represent those who are potentially undiagnosed,” said DHEC in a statement. “By including estimates, we hope to better convey more meaningful information about the risk of disease spread in our community.”
For each reported case of COVID-19, up to nine people can have the coronavirus without being formally identified, said DHEC.
South Carolina reported 2,232 confirmed cases of coronavirus on Tuesday and an estimated six times as many cases, 14,436. Fifty-one Southern Carolinians have died in the month since the state’s first case was identified.
The most populous counties in the state have the most COVID-19 cases – Richland, Charleston and Greenville. Kershaw County, in the middle of the population group, but home to Camden and two other major points in the state, ranks fifth.
The outbreak is expected to increase throughout the month. Cases doubled last week. State health officials and Governor Henry McMaster are hopeful how a stay-at-home order that went into effect on Tuesday could slow the spread.
Here are the postal codes with the highest number of confirmed and estimated undiagnosed cases reported on Tuesday:
29020 (Camden): 633 possible cases in total (91 confirmed / 542 undiagnosed)
29902 (Beaufort): 443 (62 confirmed / 381 undiagnosed)
29223 (northeast of Colombia): 400 (56 confirmed / 344 undiagnosed)
29464 (South Mount Pleasant): 336 (47 confirmed / 289 undiagnosed)
29102 (Manning): 321 (45 confirmed / 276 undiagnosed)
29045 (Elgin / Northeast Richland): 300 (42 confirmed / 258 undiagnosed)
29412 (Charleston / James Island): 250 (35 confirmed / 215 undiagnosed)
29229 (northeast of Richland): 243 (34 confirmed / 209 undiagnosed)
29466 (Mount Pleasant to the north): 229 (32 confirmed / 197 undiagnosed)
29150 (Sumter): 229 (32 confirmed / 197 undiagnosed)
29414 (Charleston / West Ashley): 228 (32 confirmed / 196 undiagnosed)
29910 (Bluffton): 221 (31 confirmed / 190 undiagnosed)
29732 (north of Rock Hill): 214 (30 confirmed / 184 undiagnosed)
29078 (Lugoff): 207 (29 confirmed / 178 undiagnosed)
29203 (North Columbia): 207 (29 confirmed / 178 undiagnosed)
29720 (Lancaster): 186 (26 confirmed / 160 undiagnosed)
29621 (East Anderson): 179 (25 confirmed / 154 undiagnosed)
29072 (Lexington): 171 (24 confirmed / 147 undiagnosed)
