Virus cases to keep rising until May, despite models showing SC past peak, DHEC says

COVID-19 cases in South Carolina will continue multiplying into early May, health officials said Monday, despite recent models that showed the state might be past its peak.

State Epidemiologist Dr. Linda Bell shared updated information at a news conference on April 20, several days after a new graph from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation showed South Carolina past a peak in COVID-19 deaths and hospital bed utilization.

According to the institute’s model, deaths from the virus in South Carolina peaked on April 9, when 16 people died. The updates “indicate that the curve may have begun to level for us here in South Carolina,” Bell said. However, predictions can change rapidly and DHEC hasn’t seen evidence of fewer infections, she said.

National health officials have advised states to meet an important benchmark — 14 days straight of a “significant downward trend” in cases — before moving to reopen their economies. Bell said South Carolina isn’t in the clear yet.

“At this point, we don’t have good trend data to say we’re having a consistent decline,” she said at the news conference.

DHEC still projects South Carolina to see 750 new COVID-19 cases per week through early May, and a total of 6,953 cases by May 9. There were 4,439 total COVID-19 cases and 124 deaths in South Carolina as of April 20, according to DHEC.

Early predictions showed South Carolina would fare much worse in the outbreak.

In late March, state health officials expected case numbers to steadily rise through April, building toward a peak of 8,053 total cases and more than 1,000 deaths by May 2. Projections from healthdata.org showed that 29 people who tested positive for COVID-19 would die in a day at the peak.

However, researchers updated case models on April 6 to reflect less than 500 total deaths by early August, and a peak of 14 deaths per day.