South Carolina is removing some of the state’s latest COVID-19 restrictions, as Governor Henry McMaster has lifted mandatory limits for mass meetings and late night alcohol sales in restaurants, starting March 1.
Large gatherings – including sporting events, concerts and festivals – no longer need state approval to ensure they are complying with security protocols. Still, McMaster asked organizers to limit participation to 50 percent of the capacity and ask for facial coverage.
The ads come at a time when COVID-19 cases are falling across the country and more people are getting vaccines. But South Carolina led the country in a positive test rate and ranked second in new cases per 100,000 people last week, according to the latest data from the White House.
Limitations on visits to nursing homes remain the only major restriction for COVID-19 in the state.
“The virus is still with us and we all must continue to make responsible decisions to take care of ourselves and our loved ones, but those decisions are for South Carolinaians to make,” said McMaster in announcing new orders on 26 March. February.
The latest change means that mass meetings of 250 people or more will no longer need approval from the state Department of Commerce. Organizers will also no longer be subject to any penalties for violating security rules.
McMaster is confident that organizers and companies will follow his suggestions on attendance limits to prevent the virus from spreading, said Brian Symmes, a spokesman for the governor.
The move from South Carolina comes two days after North Carolina lowered the attendance limits for the event.
Asked about the order of the governor, Dr. Linda Bell, chief epidemiologist in the Department of Environmental Control of SC, encouraged the public to adhere to preventive measures.
“We want people to be able to sponsor companies to participate in social activities and other things,” said Bell. “And what we have said all along is that there are safe ways to do certain activities, as long as people practice these preventive measures.”
Bars and restaurants will again be allowed to serve drinks after 11 pm, ending the curfew for alcohol sales across the state, criticized by business owners and contested by some epidemiologists.
McMaster said he decided to suspend requests because “targeted and limited security measures are no longer needed”.
SC Restaurant and Lodging Association President Bobby Williams said the two announcements together should help bring groups back to South Carolina for meetings and other events.
“It is very good news. We feel that we are returning to normal,” said Williams.
Many expect normalcy to come quickly. The state already has several large-scale tourism-generating events on the calendar for the spring, including the PGA Championship on Kiawah Island in May, which announced a plan on February 23 to allow 10,000 spectators a day – about a third of the number that he stayed there in 2012.
The University of South Carolina does not foresee any changes to spring sporting events and has made no call for autumn sports, including football.
“The Athletics Department will continue to review these new recommendations to determine its future plans for the safety of all its constituents,” said USC Director of Sports Information, Steve Fink.
State director of tourism, Duane Parrish, believes that this pattern will continue: more face-to-face events will be held with hundreds or even thousands of people, but there will still be frequency caps or other COVID-19 protocols in place.
“So it is not a MMA at all, but it is a big improvement over 2020 and it will certainly help drive us forward,” he said.
“I believe that tourism will begin to reach the 2019 numbers as we move forward in late spring and early summer.”
While business travel is expected to recover more slowly than leisure travel, Parrish said that raising the 250-person limit should be a safety signal for groups thinking about planning meetings or conferences.
“I think you will see more companies and associations start to schedule meetings, especially for the fall,” said Parrish.
When McMaster originally ordered cutting alcohol last year, after reversing restaurant seating restrictions, the goal was to control the spread of COVID-19 by young people known to crowd into bars across the state.
But bar owners were immediately concerned about the nightly loss of three profitable hours.
“We obviously didn’t sign a 10,000-foot lease on King Street in the hope of doing decent business during the day,” Keith Benjamin of Uptown Social told Post and Courier when the curfew came into effect in July.
Across South Carolina, bar owners hailed the announcement of a curfew as crucial to their financial recovery.
In the last initial call, “we are not really able to operate in a way that we can pay our bills,” said Mike Whiteley, co-owner of Dalila’s on Spring, which opens at 7pm.
Before the pandemic, downtown Charleston’s cocktail bar mostly served restaurant workers who only left around midnight.
“We kind of established ourselves as a night spot for the F&B audience,” said Whiteley. “They don’t want to be with university students; they want to be calm and relaxed. They just want a drink and a sandwich. We completely lost that whole group of people. “
During the week, sometimes Dalila doesn’t see a drinker until 10 pm. Whiteley said that on the night of February 24th he had 15 customers there, but with the curfew approaching, he had to ask all of them to leave.
Williams said it would be good for hospital employees’ mental health to have the opportunity to meet in places like Delilah’s again.
“Personally, I rarely go out at night, but this is good for the industry, because restaurant employees have nowhere to go,” he said. “Everyone likes to relax a little after a busy night. And everyone gives good tips too.”
The governor’s announcement came months after McMaster lifted capacity restrictions in bars and restaurants. As a result, after luxury bar owners like Whiteley’s closed at night, they used to pass lively nightclubs packed with hundreds of paying people.
In a rare case of public health experts and business champions who found common ground during the pandemic, scientists were equally frustrated by the scenario.
“It may seem that you are dealing with the problem, but in reality, you are doing little to help someone,” said Dr. Michael Head, senior researcher in global health at the University of Southampton, about the use of time interventions.
Head noted that the coronavirus does not pay attention to the clock, but drinkers forced to go out on the street could gather at a corner store or at an unregulated house party.
There is no way of knowing whether the curfew ended up accelerating or delaying the spread of COVID-19 in South Carolina, but the risk of infection in Charleston County is still considered extremely high.
The state reported another 1,086 new cases on February 26, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in South Carolina since the pandemic began to 441,697. More than 7,500 inhabitants of South Carolina have died.
With South Carolina abandoning the curfew, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina and Pennsylvania are the only states that cut alcohol sales at 11 pm.
Virginia still operates under the alcohol curfew at 10 pm, but is scheduled to extend its curfew until midnight on March 1st.
Hanna Raskin reported from Charleston and Andy Shain of Columbia. Mary Katherine Wildeman and Emily Williams Charleston contribution and David Cloninger of Columbia.