‘Uncharted territory’: How schools could affect the Lowcountry’s coronavirus outbreak
Beaufort County’s coronavirus outbreak has taken a promising turn.
Locally, virus hospitalizations are down. The percentage of positive COVID-19 tests in the county, while still high, has dropped.
Why?
A decline in statewide COVID-19 testing could have contributed to the recent stretch of lower daily case counts around South Carolina and the Lowcountry, public health experts say.
But mask mandates, state messaging and news media coverage this summer also forced S.C. residents to grapple with a grim reality: “We just have to live with this thing right now,” said Dr. Faith Polkey, chief clinical officer at Beaufort Jasper Hampton Comprehensive Health Services.
“It’s being managed a little better,” she said of the pandemic.
The surge of infections and deaths last month snapped people to attention, experts say. More residents are wearing masks and following public health guidelines.
“People were like ‘Oh my gosh, my kid’s gotta go back to school,’” said Dr. Kathleen Cartmell, a public health professor at Clemson University.
And that’s why experts, while encouraged, are casting a wary eye to September and October. They argue that the reopening of K-12 schools and colleges could set the Palmetto State’s virus mitigation efforts back.
Or, as some fear, in-person classes could spell disaster.
“Every day I’m waiting for the shoe to drop,” said Dr. Scott Curry, an infectious disease specialist at the Medical University of South Carolina. “Are we in the eye of a hurricane?”
The first wave of cases
While coronavirus conditions have improved this month, there’s still cause for alarm, experts say.
The statewide percentage of non-antibody COVID-19 tests that turn up positive day to day — an indicator of the pathogen’s spread — has been hovering in the mid-teens.
Similar figures have been reported in Beaufort County.
The World Health Organization, meanwhile, has suggested that governments only reopen after the percent positive is below 5% for at least two weeks.
“We’ve plateaued at a pretty robust clip of disease,” Curry said. “Masking has helped a lot. And masking put a big dent in what would have otherwise been a complete mess of a situation.”
He noted that, back in April, he rarely saw people wearing masks.
Now, many more are donning a face covering, considering the patchwork of local ordinances requiring them.
But Michael Schmidt, a microbiology and immunology professor at MUSC, stressed that S.C. is still in the first wave of the pandemic. And the promising trends in August could be reversed when schools resume in-person classes, he said.
Any spot where residents congregate is a “wild card,” he said, at least until an effective SARS-CoV-2 vaccine is developed and distributed across the country.
Curry, the infectious disease specialist, explained it this way: Schools, like health-care settings or shopping centers, are one of the few places in America where people who wouldn’t typically interact with one another are suddenly thrust into close-contact environments.
“I think we will experience massive school outbreaks,” he said. “It’s going to be a problem. Anyone who says otherwise is kidding themselves.”
He pointed to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which quickly reversed course last week and committed to online-only learning after more than 100 students tested positive.
Children, Curry added, are effective carriers of the coronavirus, or other viruses in general.
Consider Beaufort County’s statistics: Almost 42% of COVID-19 cases in the county have been recorded among those aged 11 to 20 or 21 to 30 as of Friday, S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control data show.
Experts worry that kids will bring the virus home to their families this fall and infect at-risk populations. Or they’ll pass the pathogen along to their teachers.
The Beaufort County School District is set to being online classes Sept. 8. A spokesperson for the S.C. Department of Education previously said that “unless major health and safety obstacles exist,” it will be a requirement for districts to reopen buildings two weeks after their official start date.
S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster in mid-July pushed public schools to resume in-person instruction after Labor Day. He faced swift pushback, as the Palmetto State Teachers Association argued it would be “irresponsible and dangerous” for students and teachers to return if the virus’ spread had not slowed.
Schools administrators have since developed a range of safety precautions for the eventual return to in-person classes. Beaufort County schools, for example, will mandate masks. Buses will have reduced capacity and the district will require social distancing indoors, among other things.
A public health expert’s nightmare
If school reopenings go poorly, a “nightmare” scenario could track like this, Schmidt says: The virus will spread rapidly, and taking into account the lag time between an infection and a possible hospitalization or death, a COVID-19 surge at hospitals will coincide with the start of flu season.
Flu season, Curry said, is MUSC’s “roughest” period of the year. Experts across the world have long warned that flu and COVID-19 together could potentially overwhelm health care systems.
So, if S.C.’s flu season starts in November, and reopenings lead to a spike in cases near the tail end of September — or throughout October — experts say the Lowcountry could get hit hard.
However, they stressed, things may go more smoothly than expected. The spread could be contained. Cartmell said it’s important to stay optimistic and follow DHEC recommendations.
Polkey, of BJHCHS, added that schools might reopen, be forced to send some kids home to quarantine for 14 days after exposure to the virus, allow those students back, then require virtual classes following another case — again and again.
“We’ve never seen anything like this before,” Cartmell said.
That’s why Curry said residents should track three key data points:
Have new cases per 100,000 people over the course of two weeks fallen below 50, county by county?
Has the state’s number of newly reported deaths approached zero?
Has the percent positive for daily statewide testing totals dropped below 5%?
Until all of those things happen, he said no one should breathe a sigh of relief, wipe their brow, and move on. The fall, he said, could be worse than the summer.
He hopes, though, he’s incorrect.
“By the time we know something has gone wrong, the genie’s out of the bottle big time,” Curry said.
