SC no longer under state of emergency due to COVID-19, McMaster says
South Carolina is no longer under a state of emergency order because of the COVID-19 pandemic, a threat subdued as more South Carolinians have gotten vaccinated against the respiratory disease that has claimed more than 9, 700 lives, Gov. Henry McMaster said Monday.
McMaster declined to extend the state’s emergency order, which expired Sunday, more than a year after he first enacted it on March 13, 2020, when only about 13 people had at that point tested positive for the novel virus. South Carolina has logged nearly 600,000 confirmed and probable COVID-19 cases and more than 9,700 confirmed and probable coronavirus deaths since March 2020.
“There will not be a 31st executive order,” McMaster said Monday, standing beside leaders from the health department, business and the South Carolina National Guard. “It is no longer necessary to have a state of emergency, although it is still necessary for us to be smart, to follow the rules, to follow the guidelines and be very careful as we continue to pull out of the virus and its effects.”
South Carolinians won’t see much change, if at all, with the order no longer in place.
Restrictions that put limits on social distancing, outdoor and indoor dining, store openings and mask-wearing were lifted months ago.
The governor’s decision will also have no impact on the federal relief South Carolina is getting for COVID-19, McMaster said.
School districts have reopened their classrooms to students in person before the year ends after the governor signed into law legislation to require that districts offer in-person classroom instruction all five days of school by the end of April. That forced districts to give parents options beyond virtual learning.
The state Department of Education also rescinded its requirement that students and school staff wear masks in response to the governor’s executive order in May that prohibited school districts and local governments from requiring facial coverings.
That order let parents opt out of school mask requirements imposed on their children, invalidated any local government mask mandates that relied on the COVID-19-related state of emergency and barred any jurisdiction from requiring vaccination as a prerequisite for receiving government services.
SC among early states to take action
South Carolina is one of a small number of states nationwide and the only state in the Southeast that has lifted its COVID-19-related state of emergency, according to the nonprofit National Academy for State Health Policy.
The nonprofit, which tracks each state’s actions on COVID-19 emergency orders, mask mandates and travel advisories, found that only six other states and the District of Columbia had lifted their states of emergency, as of May 28.
“I’m very proud and thankful for the way that the people of South Carolina responded to the virus. I think the plan that we developed, very carefully and methodically, was the right plan,” McMaster said, mentioning that other states took different plans but South Carolina’s “worked better.”
However, not every South Carolinian has been pleased with McMaster’s response. Some have felt McMaster opened the state too quickly, while others say the governor should never have enforced protocols in the first place.
With COVID-19 vaccines readily available to all South Carolinians, many workplaces have reopened to employees, and businesses with mask requirements in place have lifted those mandates if customers are vaccinated.
As of Monday, 45.5% of South Carolinians age 12 and older have gotten one COVID-19 vaccine shot and 38.2% are fully vaccinated, which ranks in the bottom 20% of states.
“But I can assure of you that during the course of this and, now still as we go forward, we’ve got the whole team on the field,” McMaster said.
Dr. Edward Simmer, director of the state Department of Health and Environmental Control, said Monday he is “pleased” to be at this point in the virus, and said the state has made “great progress” by citing declining cases, hospitalizations and COVID-related deaths.
“Obviously there is still much more work to be done,” Simmer said, pointing particularly to the low vaccination rate. “We will never be able to make COVID-19 completely go away. But I think we will get to the point where it is something that is, we have to be careful with, that we have to monitor, but that for most of our citizens it will not be a major impact on their lives.”
On vaccinations, McMaster said the state will not mandate that students be vaccinated before they return to school in the fall.
Simmer, too, said it should be the parent’s choice but it should be encouraged.
“I think it’s important to remember is as safe as these vaccines appear to be, they are under emergency use authorization, and therefore we don’t think it’s appropriate to mandate any group to get vaccinated to include school children,” he said.
“The end of the emergency doesn’t mean the end of the effort,” Simmer added. “So, we’re still going to be doing lots of things to get vaccine out to areas where they haven’t had good access yet.”
This story was originally published June 7, 2021 at 1:51 PM.
