COLOMBIA – With COVID-19 cases reaching record levels, South Carolina health leaders and Governor Henry McMaster pleaded with residents to wear masks continuously and to distance themselves socially during this holiday season to curb the death of loved ones, watching that aid is on the way but there are still months to go.
While South Carolina is expected to receive enough doses in the coming days to vaccinate at least 200,000 people, that will not be enough even for all those eligible in the highest priority group, which includes frontline medical workers and nursing home residents, McMaster said.
“It seems that many people have let their guard down. I know we are tired, but now is not the time to slow down. Now is the time to redouble our efforts,” he said, warning that widespread vaccination “will be a slow process across the country. “
But he reiterated that he will not close the state again, as he did for about six weeks in the spring with one of the shortest stay requests in the country.
Other states where Democratic governors have ordered longer closures and recently repressed again have ruined their economy and killed hundreds of thousands of companies, the Republican governor said, adding that these actions did not end up stopping the spread there.
“There is a better way, and we all know what it is,” he said, indicating the mask in his hand.
The number of South Carolinians diagnosed with the disease skyrocketed last week, reaching a new record of 2,716 on December 3 and remaining above 2,000 a day.
It is the worst week for new cases since the disease was first confirmed in South Carolina in March, with more than 13,000 cases accumulated. And the high percentage of positivity among those taking the test means that the virus is actually much more widespread than the numbers show, said Dr. Linda Bell, the state’s chief epidemiologist.
Approximately half of people who contract the virus have no symptoms, but can still spread it.
“We are not near the end of this,” said Bell.
Although the post-Thanksgiving increase outpaces the previous peak in positive test results in July, there has not been a similar increase in deaths, at least not yet. From mid to late July, deaths rose to 55 in a single day. This month, they were below 30.
Dr. David Cole, president of the Medical University of South Carolina, said that while he hopes that “some good mojo is occurring”, he hopes otherwise.
“There is a long time lag between when someone goes to the hospital and finally dies,” he said. “I don’t want to be morbid, but stay tuned.”
There are 1,217 Southern Carolinians hospitalized with COVID-19 across the state, representing 13 percent of all hospital patients, and 275 of them are in intensive care, according to the state’s Department of Health and Environmental Control.
Teachers have called for a return to online learning only, saying they are concerned about the safety of themselves, their students and their families even more now than when the school year began. Recently, at least four districts have returned to working online only and others have reduced face-to-face days.
But McMaster again called for the opposite, saying schools must offer five days of face-to-face learning, releasing a survey of 15 districts offering a full week since the beginning of the school year. Other districts should follow their advice on how to open safely, he said.
“There is very little I can do to open these schools. I have no authority to make school districts make that decision. If I had that authority, I would have done that a long time ago,” he said, adding that his government has repeatedly offered to provide the districts with any protective equipment they desired.
McMaster also hoped that the availability of quick results COVID-19 tests in public schools would encourage more districts to start a week-long option. The tests, distributed last week to participating districts, aim to quickly discern whether a student or employee is sick with the coronavirus or anything else during the cold winter and flu season.
However, at least 10 districts refused to participate in the program.
It is rare for young people, especially schoolchildren, to become seriously ill with the disease that affects the elderly and those with underlying health problems. No one aged 5 to 19 in South Carolina died of the disease, while those aged 70 and over account for 71 percent of deaths, according to DHEC
Increasing research on the new disease also shows that infected children are not likely to transmit it, although the reason is unknown, and that outbreaks found in schools are likely to reflect the spread in the community, not the school itself.
Local data supports this.
“We don’t see significant evidence of transmission in schools,” said Bell. Recognizing that prolonged classroom interaction is a more risky environment than other jobs, she said, “the good thing, for the most part, is that we believe schools are doing their best to manage.”
The concern is what is happening in the community at large and in homes, she said.
Taking the state capital as an example, in the past two weeks, more than 1,800 residents of Richland County have had positive results, for an accumulated total of 22,000, placing it among the highest rates in the state. But most schools did not present any cases in the last month among students and staff actually in the classroom at that time, rather than online learning, with no public schools in the county reporting more than five, according to DHEC.
“Fortunately, we didn’t have a lot of positives,” especially compared to the high COVID-19 count in Richland County, said Dawn MacAdams, health coordinator for Richland Two and former president of the state School Nurses Association.
Across the state, 3,367 students and 1,446 K-12 public school employees tested positive for COVID-19 last month, DHEC reports. Bell pointed out that these represent cases associated with schools, not necessarily hired there.
MacAdams said that while most of his time is dealing with possible close contacts of someone with a positive test between students and staff, the cases usually occur outside the school building.
With students in a hybrid mix of virtual and classroom learning, identifying close contacts involves finding out when a particular student was in the last class and who else, during rotating schedules, she said last month about the lengthy process.
McMaster’s repeated refusal to close deals came a day after a neighboring governor announced the curfew.
The modified request to stay at the home of North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper requires the state’s 10.5 million residents to stay off the streets between 10 pm and 5 am, starting on Friday. Suggesting that other restrictions are possible, the Democrat also ordered bars, restaurants, entertainment venues and personal care stores to close at 10 pm and alcohol sales to end an hour earlier.
McMaster has repeatedly argued that prolonged outages represent an unconstitutional takeover of someone’s property and livelihood.
On the other coast, on Tuesday, a California judge gave Los Angeles closed restaurants a victory by declaring the county’s ban on outdoor dining “arbitrary” and irrational, saying health officials showed no evidence of risk. increased. But the decision did not provide real relief for the state’s weakened restaurant industry, as it was replaced by a broader shutdown ordered by Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom.