Daily COVID cases return below 3,000 in South Carolina after reaching summer peak

South Carolina’s daily COVID-19 case count dropped below 3,000 on Saturday after hitting a summer peak of 3,511 just two days earlier, according to data released Monday by the state Department of Health and Environmental Control.

There were 1,852 new confirmed cases and 615 probable cases. Eight new confirmed deaths and one probable death from COVID also were reported.

The highly contagious delta variant is likely responsible for the majority of COVID-19 cases in South Carolina, according to state health officials. The exact number of delta cases is unknown because only a fraction of confirmed cases undergo genome sequencing, the process used to determine the variant.

Out of 21,589 COVID tests conducted, 12.3% came back positive, down 4 percentage points from Wednesday, the last day the numbers were updated. This percentage still indicates a very high risk of transmission, according to CDC indicators. Percent positive refers to the number of positive COVID-19 tests in relation to all COVID-19 tests conducted.

There have been more than 525,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases in South Carolina since the start of the pandemic and more than 643,000 cases in all. DHEC provides updated COVID-19 data Monday through Friday at 1 p.m.