Coronavirus live updates: Here’s what to know in South Carolina on Oct. 4
We’re tracking the most up-to-date information about the coronavirus in South Carolina. Check back for updates.
Cases top 146,000
At least 146,576 people have tested positive for the coronavirus in South Carolina, and 3,255 have died, according to state health officials.
The S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control on Sunday reported 619 new cases of the virus, down from 649 the day before.
As of Sunday, 11.8% of COVID-19 tests were positive, DHEC says. That’s down from 32.6% Saturday — a spike caused by a “temporary reporting delay” as the agency upgrades its internal database.
Twelve deaths were reported Sunday.
As of Sunday, 599 patients were in South Carolina hospitals with COVID-19, including 153 in intensive care and 72 on ventilators.
Graham, Harrison square off over COVID-19
Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham and Democratic challenger Jaime Harrison met on the debate stage Saturday night and faced off over the pandemic and the Supreme Court.
Harrison said President Donald Trump isn’t to blame for the initial outbreak of COVID-19 in the United States, but that blame should directed at how federal and state leaders managed the disease that has so far claimed more than 200,000 American lives.
“We need a strategy, a 50-state strategy, and the failure of leadership — again, we’re not blaming anybody for the inception of this — but the failure of leadership of addressing this,” Harrison said. “We failed to act. The Senate failed to act. The White House failed to act. The governors failed to act. We need leaders who are going to step up and act.”
Graham called the virus serious and acknowledged Harrison’s loss of a relative to it. But he said “we have to move on as a nation” and focus on a vaccine, therapeutics and the president’s U.S. Supreme Court justice nominee, Amy Coney Barrett. Graham chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will vet Barrett.
“It will be done safely, but I’ve got a job to do and I’m pressing on,” he said.
The debate was held Saturday night at Allen University, a historically Black school in Columbia, while Trump was receiving hospital treatment for COVID-19.
Graham has been in the presence of someone who has tested positive for COVID-19 in recent weeks. He was tested for the virus and said his results were negative.
The debate was held without an audience in the room, and the candidates were 13 feet apart. Both wore masks onto the stage but removed them for the debate.
Mail-in voting witness requirement lands in Supreme Court
A legal battle over the witness requirement for absentee voting in South Carolina is now in the U.S. Supreme Court, filings show.
The battle, which pits Democrats and Republicans against each other, started Sept. 18 when U.S. District Judge Michelle Childs of Columbia ordered that South Carolinians voting by mail did not need to get a witness signature on their mail-in ballot envelope because of the dangers of COVID-19.
Her order was appealed to the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, and on Sept. 24, a three-judge panel overturned her order. But on Sept. 25, a majority of the full 4th Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the panel’s ruling and reinstated Childs’ order.
The Election Commission governing board last Monday voted to appeal the full 4th Circuit ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, and on Thursday, lawyers submitted a 37-page request for an emergency stay of Childs’ order with the high court.
The Supreme Court will first have to decide whether to take the case. If it doesn’t, the full 4th Circuit ruling will be upheld and Childs’ order will stand.
South Carolina voters are expected to cast hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots this election.
This story was originally published October 4, 2020 at 10:49 AM.
