Since the summer, South Carolina has not reached new highs in the COVID-19 cases, according to the new daily and average seven-day records established last week.
But, unlike the summer, South Carolina has fewer restrictions.
The state allows for big get-togethers, with more than 300 events planned for this month that can attract hundreds of thousands of people to parades, ball games and festive events.
Nursing homes can receive visitors, with more than 150 of them allowing internal visits.
And restaurants can reach their maximum capacity without restrictions on the distance from the seats.
Yes, there are caveats.
Meetings of 250 people or more require state approval, although no one checks whether the organizers are complying with promised security measures.
Internal visits to nursing homes are not allowed if an employee tested positive for COVID-19 in the previous two weeks.
Restaurant customers and employees must wear war masks and beverage sales must stop until 11 pm
South Carolina has come a long way since the decision to stay home and the ban on non-essential business after the outbreak began in the spring.
But cases are increasing as lower temperatures drive more Southern Carolinians into the home and more people are visiting family and friends on vacation. Daily cases passed the 3,000 mark for the first time, just two weeks after Thanksgiving.
State epidemiologist Linda Bell, who acknowledged last week that “we are not near the end of this,” said the number of SC counties with declining case data has gone from 35 to six in just over a month.
She added that the state could prevent 1,000 of the 3,000 deaths estimated by COVID-19 from occurring by April, if 95 percent of South Carolinians were wearing masks.
South Carolina remains one of 15 states without a mask law, although nine counties and 55 cities and towns require facial coverage.
“There is significant control that we have over what we are seeing,” Bell said during a COVID meeting with Governor Henry McMaster. “And this public health crisis is not about politics. The virus does not harm or spare people based on their political beliefs. We have to follow the scientific evidence to make decisions about what we are going to do.
McMaster, a former United States attorney and state attorney general, said in the briefing that he will not re-impose restrictions based on the economy and its interpretation of the law. He again emphasized that the South Carolinians must take personal responsibility for following security measures that will slow the coronavirus.
The governor mentioned other states with more COVID restrictions with higher unemployment rates, saying that they destroyed economies, businesses and families.
South Carolina had the country’s seventh lowest unemployment rate in October, just ahead of Georgia.
New York and California, a McMaster target in the past, were in the top five.
“I believe we are doing our best,” said McMaster last week. “We are not going to close South Carolina.”
Then there is your legal argument.
“When you close a deal, you are potentially killing that deal or taking that person’s property and there is a constitutional issue involved,” he said. That was McMaster’s main concern, reluctant to issue a request to stay home in the spring.
In addition, he pushed to reopen asylums, despite being responsible for one in three COVID-19 deaths in the state, so people could check on their loved ones.
Add it all up and don’t expect new restrictions anytime soon.
Still, calls for caution are growing.
Senate minority leader Brad Hutto wrote to McMaster last week asking him to order a 90-day state mask mandate, something the governor said was not applicable.
“Wearing a mask is not a political statement, any more than wearing a seat belt,” wrote the Orangeburg Democrat. “We demand the use of seat belts, although we know that we have no personnel to guarantee 100 percent compliance.”
Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin, who heads a city that has enacted a masking rule since the summer, said McMaster has the power to contain activities that spread the virus, as he did when issuing an order to stay at home.
“The question is whether he wants to or not,” said Benjamin.
McMaster has his reasons, for sure. And he will be waiting for further confirmation when the new state unemployment figures are released on Friday and he can see how South Carolina’s economy is doing.