Every day, The Greenville News publishes a new live story with the latest COVID-19 news relevant to our communities in the state. This is our COVID-19 news summary for December 28th. We will update this story only until the end of the weekend.
Map of coronavirus SC: An analysis of COVID-19 cases by county and postal code
Record cases for Christmas
The state had a record number of new cases on Christmas Day, according to the State Department of Health and Environment.
During the holidays – December 24 and 25 – South Carolina reported nearly 7,000 cases of COVID-19, with Greenville County representing nearly 1,500 of them, according to DHEC data release on Sunday.
The positive percentage rate on December 25 was 23.5%, according to DHEC.
The figures indicate that the increase in the post-Thanksgiving virus will turn into a post-Christmas increase, which health officials warned about last week. The growing number of virus cases threatens to overwhelm hospitals’ ability to care for patients as ICU beds become full.