| Greenville News
Out-of-state college students in South Carolina are not counted in the COVID-19 test data, questioning the accuracy with which residents, leaders and business owners are able to understand how colleges are affecting the spread of the virus in the community.
The state Department of Health and Environmental Control said it tracks COVID-19 cases by the patient’s permanent address, meaning that students from other states and counties in South Carolina are not counted by their school address, according to an email response from the DHEC media team.
South Carolina residents, who attend college in other states, are counted in the COVID-19 of SC, even if they have been exposed and infected in another state, according to DHEC.
Using a student’s permanent address prevents health agencies from double counting COVID-19 cases between states and counties, according to DHEC. Information about a student’s whereabouts is passed on to local contact trackers to ensure that the virus is monitored and tracked accurately.
Several requests for an interview with a DHEC official were denied.
Colleges have different ways of reporting to DHEC
There are 54,474 out-of-state college students at dozens of South Carolina colleges, according to the latest enrollment data from the state’s Higher Education Commission in 2018.
Elly Lord got COVID-19 a month after moving back to his Columbia apartment in August. The Seneca native said she is not sure how it was exposed. But on August 31, she became one of 3,044 students at the University of South Carolina who tested positive.
In state data, the Lord’s test would be recorded in Oconee County, where she grew up, and not in Richland County, where she was exposed and lives most of the year, according to DHEC rules. A contact tracker from upstate sought her out after a Midlands tracker found her permanent address, she said.
The state’s largest universities, Clemson University and UofSC, do not publish data on how many students who test positive are within the state versus outside the state. In total, 84 higher education institutions enroll more than 250,000 students, according to CHE.
UofSC, Clemson and Coastal Carolina have the largest populations of students from outside the state, according to CHE. All schools publish their own COVID data on their individual websites.
Together, the three schools reported 8,797 cases of coronavirus students, according to each school’s data panel. Using publicly available data, there is no way to accurately determine how many of these tests were recorded in other states or counties.
Where colleges exist, county COVID data is not an accurate reflection
When looking at county-level data, discrepancies between university test totals and DHEC data become apparent. For the week of November 8 to 14, Pickens and Oconee counties – where the majority of Clemson University students live in on- and off-campus housing – reported 4,901 tests, according to DHEC. That same week, Clemson conducted more than 12,000 tests, according to his panel.
John Shaughnessy is the owner of Moe Joe Coffee Co. in Clemson and uses DHEC county data “as a part” of the information he collects to make decisions about his cafeteria, which still has the dining room closed.
“We have always made that choice based on the data and not on what the governor or whoever is saying it is normal to do, because, honestly, we simply have not been able to trust politicians too much throughout this,” he said.
Shaughnessy said he uses DHEC data “with a grain of salt”, especially as the students came back and he didn’t believe the numbers he saw every day were reliable.
Zoe covers Clemson, but don’t ask about touchdowns or tackles – she covers everything that isn’t sporting. Find her at [email protected] or @zoenicholson_ on Twitter. Be careful, she is a black belt in karate.