With 84 deaths Thursday, SC passes 7,000 COVID-19 deaths
Nearly 11 months since the state reported its first COVID-19 death, more than 7,000 South Carolinians have lost their lives to the novel coronavirus.
State health officials Thursday reported 1,428 new confirmed COVID-19 cases and 84 deaths from the virus, bringing South Carolina’s cumulative death toll to 7,010. The 84 deaths announced Thursday are the most since Feb. 1, when 210 coronavirus casualties were reported.
More than 10% of the 20,613 tests reported Thursday came back positive, according to the state Department of Health and Environmental Control.
DHEC calculates the positivity rate by taking the total number of positive viral tests and dividing it by the total number of tests taken. The number of cases is lower than the number of positive tests because some people take multiple tests.
COVID-19 hospitalizations, which have declined markedly since reaching record highs in mid-January, dropped again Thursday to 1,391, nearly 44% lower than their peak of 2,466 a month ago.
Since March of last year, the state has reported 419,435 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 56,852 probable cases, including 392 Thursday.
In addition to the 7,010 confirmed deaths, South Carolina counts an additional 827 deaths, including 10 Thursday, as probable COVID-19 deaths.
DHEC defines a probable case as someone who has had a positive antigen test or has virus symptoms and is at high risk for infection. Probable deaths are ones where the death certificate lists COVID-19 as the cause of or a contributing factor to death, but the person was not tested for the virus.
Vaccines distributed
As of Thursday, South Carolina had received 532,350 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine and 438,100 doses of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine.
The agency reported Thursday that 322,968 first doses of the Pfizer vaccine and 113,649 first doses of the Moderna vaccine had been administered so far. Another 90,640 second doses of the Pfizer vaccine and 26,712 second doses of the Moderna vaccine also have been administered.
Administrations of the Moderna vaccine currently lag behind Pfizer administrations because until recently Moderna shots had been used exclusively to vaccinate long-term care facility residents and staff as part of a federal pharmacy partnership. In recent weeks, the Moderna vaccine, which does not have the same ultra-cold storage requirements as the Pfizer vaccine, has been shipped to pharmacies, federally qualified health centers and other providers, and its uptake is expected to increase.
Health care workers, long-term care facility residents and staff, and all people age 65 and older are currently eligible to receive vaccinations.
In addition to the nearly 567,000 first and second vaccine doses that have been administered, South Carolinians have scheduled another 427,000 vaccination appointments, DHEC said.
Anyone eligible to receive a vaccine who would like to get one can use DHEC’s locator tool to find a provider with availability near you at www.scdhec.gov/vaxlocator. For those who lack internet access, DHEC recently launched a phone line — 866-365-8110 — where operators are available every day from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. to help people searching for information about vaccine providers.
State health officials advise South Carolinians to continue taking measures to mitigate spread of COVID-19 as the vaccination rollout progresses in the months ahead.
DHEC urges anyone who is symptomatic or who has been exposed to someone with COVID-19 to get tested themselves and recommends routine monthly testing for anyone who is out and about in the community, even if they are asymptomatic.
To find a testing location near you, visit DHEC’s website at scdhec.gov/covid19/covid-19-testing-locations.