Is South Carolina staying at home for coronavirus? A study breaks it down by county

Since Gov. Henry McMaster issued his “work-or-home” order April 6 to help slow the spread of coronavirus, some South Carolina counties have been doing a better job of social distancing than others, data from a new study show.

The University of Maryland study assigned a social distancing score to every county in the U.S. based on factors such as the percentage of people staying home, number of trips taken, miles traveled and more, relative to the population size.

Researchers used “privacy-protected data from mobile devices” to track movement.

Looking at the data from April 6 on, Charleston, Beaufort, and Horry counties are the three best at social distancing, according to the study, earning scores of 54, 53, and 53.

For context, the highest score in the nation is 85, given to New York County, New York -- one of the communities hardest hit by coronavirus, and with some of the strictest shelter restrictions as a result.

In Charleston County, population 405,000, 32% of residents stayed home. An average of 2.6 trips were taken per person, with a total distance traveled of 17.6 miles.

The three lowest scoring counties are Saluda, with a score of 28, Dillon with 29, and Union at 30, according to the study.

Saluda County residents averaged 3.3 trips per person, 32.3 total miles traveled, and only 16 percent of residents stayed home.

This study highlights a clear divide between rural and urban when it comes to social distancing, even after a statewide order was implemented.

The populations of Saluda, Dillon and Union combined make up less than a fourth of the population of top-scoring Charleston County.

There are several reasons why rural Americans aren’t adhering to coronavirus restrictions the way their urban counterparts are, according to experts.

For starters, things tend to be further apart out in the country, and that includes essential services.

While the grocery store may be within walking distance in the city, it’s typically more than a three-mile drive for rural residents, according to Pew.

“USDA has classified 418 counties as “food deserts”— all the residents of a county are 10 or more miles away from a full-service grocery store — and 98 percent of those counties are rural,” according to a Center for Rural Affairs report.

Second, there have been far fewer confirmed cases of coronavirus in rural areas, which experts credit largely to lower population density.

So it makes sense that rural Americans are seeing fewer cases personally and are less likely to know someone impacted by the virus. This has the psychological effect of making the threat seem distant, of making it seem less serious, the University of Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center reported.

“Knowing people who are getting sick makes it feel realer than hearing about a disease on the news,” the report said.

But politics play a role too, Dr. Michael Brumage, director of the Preventive Medicine Residency Program at the West Virginia University School of Public Health, told Berkeley.

“In much of rural America, we are conservative compared to both coasts,” Brumage says. “And so people will gravitate towards watching news sources that downplayed the pandemic early.”

Still, rural areas are not invulnerable to coronavirus, health experts caution.

“It might have a harder time traveling to rural areas, but once it gets there, it will affect rural areas in a similar fashion to more densely populated areas,” Jorge Salinas, University of Iowa epidemiologist and infectious disease specialist, told Stat news.