New coronavirus cases hit double digits in Beaufort Co. for 6 days straight. Here’s why
After a week of double-digit increases in the number of people in Beaufort County diagnosed with the coronavirus, residents and officials are calling for more testing sites, an end to rumors and more personal responsibility from both visitors and locals.
Before June 8, new case counts for the county were down to between one and nine a day.
On June 8, the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control reported 13 new cases in the county.
That was followed by 20 on June 9; 19 on June 10; 24 on June 11; 33 on June 12; and 25 new cases reported on June 13. The June 12 figures were the county’s highest since the pandemic began.
That upward trend has some calling this the second spike in the virus we were hoping never to see.
“Fasten your seatbelts. The second wave of COVID-19 has arrived in Beaufort County,” EMS Battalion Chief for Hilton Head Fire Rescue Tom Bouthillet posted on Facebook on Friday.
Uptick in local coronavirus cases
Beaufort Memorial Hospital CEO Russell Baxley told The Island Packet the hospital is seeing an uptick in symptomatic patients and positive tests.
“We are seeing another surge in Beaufort County and South Carolina” he said. “This is not over.”
On Friday, South Carolina set a new record for the number of new cases in a single day: 770 people tested positive.
The increase in new cases has been attributed to more accessible testing, relaxed social distancing and an increase in travel.
June 8 marked two weeks since Memorial Day, when thousands flocked to Hilton Head beaches for the first time in months.
But when asked about whether the United States has entered a second wave of coronavirus infections, some experts say the country hasn’t even left the first.
“We really never quite finished the first wave,” Dr. Ashish Jha, a global health professor at Harvard University, told NPR. “And it doesn’t look like we are going to anytime soon.”
NPR reported that the U.S. peaked at an average of 31,000 new cases per day on April 10.
Since then, NPR reported that the average of new daily cases has dropped to around 22,000 and stayed there for the last month.
More testing?
As the county prepares for a summer of both tourism and the coronavirus, some are calling for more accessible testing on Hilton Head.
A free testing site is being planned for the Volunteers in Medicine clinic on the island’s north end, according to Sen. Tom Davis, R-Beaufort. Access to such testing outside a doctor’s office or hospital should help workers on the island get tested as soon as possible, he said.
Details were not readily available Saturday, but Davis said he hopes to have more information about the clinic this week.
There is currently not a state-funded mobile testing center in Beaufort County, although many physicians’ offices and hospitals offer testing.
The nearest mobile testing site is at Agape Family Life Center in Hardeeville, according to a DHEC listing.
Restaurants and rumors
Meanwhile, restaurants on Hilton Head Island are struggling to deal with both the rumors and the realities of employees who test positive for the virus or show symptoms.
In the last two weeks, several restaurants, country clubs and retail stores have been rumored to have employees who have the virus but continued to work.
In some cases, the rumor is impossible to prove or disprove without a firsthand account from the employee.
In other cases, the rumors are false.
Two weeks ago, an employee at Hudson’s Seafood on the Docks found out that a person he had recently spent time with had tested positive for the virus, according to restaurant owner Andrew Carmines.
That brought parts of the restaurant’s operation to a screeching halt.
The employee and those who were around him left the restaurant and got tested. Their tests all came back negative, but they stayed home for two weeks as a precaution.
Meanwhile, rumors flew that four employees at the restaurant had tested positive and were continuing to work.
“I was extremely disappointed to hear there were rumors going around about our employees that are not true,” Carmines said Saturday.
But as restaurants come up on one month of being reopened during the pandemic, he said diners and employees still should take social distancing seriously.
For some, the reopening has meant that they think less about the dangers of the coronavirus.
“It was a really scary. It was a little bit of a wake up call,” Carmines said. “Until they’re confronted with a situation, it’s hard to remember that it could happen.”
This story was originally published June 13, 2020 at 2:17 PM.
