South Carolina adds nearly 600 new COVID-19 cases, 24 deaths to toll

South Carolina added nearly 600 new COVID-19 cases to its total Wednesday, marking 17 straight days of seeing fewer than 1,000 new daily cases, according to the state Department of Health and Environmental Control.

A similar streak of lower numbers hasn’t occurred since July, when daily case totals were at the lowest since the pandemic began.

The Palmetto State’s downward trend of cases shows the spread of the virus has slowed significantly compared to months earlier. Only once over the past three weeks has the state reported more than 1,000 new daily cases.

DHEC also reported 24 additional COVID-related deaths, bringing the statewide death toll to 14,064. Almost 750 people have died of COVID-19 in South Carolina over the past month alone.

Of the 597 new cases reported Wednesday, at least 227 were listed as “probable” rather than confirmed. That brings the state’s total COVID-19 case count to nearly 909,000 since March 2020.

The state conducted 9,815 tests for Wednesday’s data, with 7.9% coming back positive. The state health department said cases reported came from testing completed two days earlier.

The number of tests conducted over the past two months has also declined, resulting in fewer positive cases, though the positivity rate of those tests has also decreased.

About 36.5% of the new cases reported Wednesday were people age 30 and under. Children 10 and younger made up 10.9% of the new cases, while 14% of the cases were diagnosed in people between the ages of 11-20.

At the earlier height of the pandemic between December 2019 and February 2020, only 5.8% of positive cases were kids 10 and under.

The highly contagious delta variant is likely responsible for the majority of new 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 to determine the variant.

There have been 471 deaths — 0.0197% of all cases — as of Nov. 12 from “breakthrough” cases, meaning the person was fully vaccinated. The majority of deaths — 60% — are people age 71 and up. About 65% of those who died had comorbid conditions. And 0.775% of all fully vaccinated people have been infected, while nearly 0.058% of fully vaccinated people have been hospitalized.

Health officials recommend wearing a face mask and getting the coronavirus vaccine to help limit the spread of the virus.

South Carolina’s vaccination rate is 55.9%, among the lowest in the country.

Andrew Caplan

The State

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Andrew Caplan is a watchdog journalist who hails from Florida. He comes to The State Media Company after winning several statewide awards for investigative work covering elected officials, as well as public and government entities. He holds a master’s degree from the University of South Florida.