Beaufort County’s COVID-19 cases are spiking. ‘It’s worse definitely than the summer.’
Beaufort County’s coronavirus outbreak is now more dangerous than ever, as the novel pathogen continues to race through local households after the holiday season.
“It’s worse definitely than the summer,” said Dr. Faith Polkey, chief clinical officer at Beaufort Jasper Hampton Comprehensive Health Services.
New federal, state and county data reflect a disaster in the Lowcountry:
Eighteen people died in Beaufort County last month after contracting the coronavirus, according to Coroner’s Office data. Six people as of Wednesday afternoon had already been killed in 2021. July saw the highest number of county deaths, the Coroner’s Office reported, with over 25 fatalities. But Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s leading expert on infectious diseases, has warned that mid-January could be a “dark time” for the country, as the holidays’ effects on COVID-19 transmission, coupled with colder weather, come into full view.
Beaufort County’s seven-day average of positive COVID-19 tests hit a new high of 31.2% on Jan. 1. That average had hovered under 10% in early November, according to the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control. The World Health Organization previously suggested that governments reopen only after logging a positivity rate of 5% or less for at least 14 days.
The county has repeatedly broken single-day case records recently, with 134 new infections reported on Dec. 31, 135 cases announced Jan. 3 and 227 confirmed cases Friday. It’s unclear to what extent holiday-related testing backlogs affected those numbers. Regardless, Beaufort County has logged similar figures off-and-on for weeks, originally breaking the previous record on Dec. 18, with 126 infections reported that day. The seven-day average of new cases also peaked on Friday at roughly 108.
COVID-19 hospitalizations are rising at county medical centers. Beaufort Memorial Hospital was treating 24 coronavirus patients as of Friday, with three of those people in the intensive care unit on ventilators, according to facility data. The hospital only had 11 coronavirus patients on Dec. 4. Hilton Head and Coastal Carolina hospitals had 28 COVID-19 patients as of early Friday. Those medical centers were treating just 13 people for the coronavirus on Dec. 22.
Government agencies and media organizations track COVID-19 cases in different ways, but The New York Times maintains one of the most up-to-date databases on coronavirus infections in the world. That data as of early Sunday showed that Beaufort County is logging more daily cases per 100,000 people — 77 — than Chatham County.
President Donald Trump’s administration is also classifying Beaufort County as a “sustained hotspot” for COVID-19 spread, according to data updated on Thursday.
Almost every other county in the state has that designation, and many of the issues in the Lowcountry are evident around South Carolina.
Beaufort County, for its part, is far from being the Palmetto State’s hardest-hit area.
The Upstate, and particularly Greenville County, have been slammed with cases since early November. Experts previously said cooler weather likely drove that uptick, as residents moved indoors.
The Greenville region as of Thursday, according to Trump’s administration, had one of the worst COVID-19 outbreaks of any metro area in the United States with 250,000 to 1 million residents.
But that doesn’t mean Beaufort County is immune to the pathogen’s rapid spread across South Carolina.
Experts are worried about what’s to come, even as the state’s first COVID-19 vaccines are slowly distributed to local health care workers and long-term care residents.
“Gosh, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I was thinking it was similar to summer, but now it’s just accelerated,” Polkey said.
What happened?
Michael Schmidt, a microbiology and immunology professor at the Medical University of South Carolina, said people infected after Thanksgiving also traveled before Christmas, contributing to the spike.
Holiday gatherings are now having an effect on disease transmission, Schmidt said.
“It’s pretty bad statewide,” he said.
People without COVID-19 symptoms — either those who are pre-symptomatic or completely asymptomatic but contagious — transmit more than 50% of all infections, according to a model developed by researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that was published Thursday in the JAMA Network Open journal.
That likely posed a major problem in December, when groups of people met together indoors.
Polkey, of BJHCHS, said she’s recently noticed both symptomatic and asymptomatic people testing positive.
“It’s happening in people’s households. You kind of got your bubble, but then maybe someone in your household breaks the bubble,” she said. “Your sister comes over, or you go visit your mom and your uncle’s there. You know? That’s what it seems to be. And I think that’s where we let down our guard.”
The holidays’ effects on the pandemic, though, won’t be entirely clear until later this month, experts warn.
Fauci told New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Dec. 7 that the impact of Thanksgiving wouldn’t be fully known until right before Christmas, and that presented a possible “surge upon a surge” carrying into January.
“We could start to see things really get bad,” said Fauci, who’s the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
What can people do to stay safe?
Beaufort County residents should interact only with their own household members as much as possible, Polkey said. Schmidt echoed that recommendation, noting that social groups should also try to stay within their quarantine bubble.
Polkey, though, said it’s sometimes difficult to stay inside, especially if people are caring for other relatives.
If that’s the case, and you have to visit family, she said, wear a mask, stay six feet apart and try to remain outdoors.
“Don’t go and sit in the living room,” Polkey said.
DHEC is also continuing to urge S.C. residents to wear face masks when in public, practice social distancing and get tested regularly for COVID-19.
Gov. Henry McMaster, meanwhile, has repeatedly signaled that he’s not willing to reimpose business restrictions or issue stronger COVID-19 prevention orders like a statewide mask mandate.
Have you experienced the effects of coronavirus spread within your household? Reach out to reporter Sam Ogozalek at sogozalek@islandpacket.com or (843) 900-6372. We’re working to quantify the impact of family-to-family COVID-19 transmission in Beaufort County.
