SC official urges coastal residents to get a COVID-19 vaccine for hurricane season
One of South Carolina’s top health officials is pleading with unvaccinated residents to get a COVID-19 shot before a hurricane possibly sweeps toward the coast this season, leading to mass evacuations.
A major storm could force an influx of vulnerable people into close quarters, driving an uptick in coronavirus cases, said Dr. Jane Kelly, assistant state epidemiologist. The Atlantic hurricane season began Tuesday.
“Being vaccinated in these critical situations,” Kelly told reporters, “will prevent a significant spread of the virus and greatly reduce the chances of contamination, hospitalization and death.”
Derrec Becker, a spokesman for the S.C. Emergency Management Division, stressed that regardless of vaccination status, people will be allowed into the state’s hurricane shelters if a storm hits South Carolina.
But he echoed Kelly’s point: Getting vaccinated sooner rather than later will be beneficial to all.
Kelly and Becker’s remarks come as the Palmetto State’s COVID-19 case trends continue to improve.
Experts, though, still worry that a sluggish vaccination rate and new coronavirus variants could complicate recovery efforts and lead to more deaths.
Only about 37.1% of South Carolina residents 12 or older have been fully vaccinated, according to the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control.
And roughly 47.9% of Beaufort County’s 12 and up population is still unvaccinated, DHEC data show.
“I worry there’s over-optimism,” said Michael Sweat, director of the COVID-19 Epidemiology Intelligence Project at the Medical University of South Carolina.
An uptick in coronavirus cases among unvaccinated people, Sweat said, could occur in the weeks following Memorial Day.
“If we do get a rebound, I don’t think we’re going to have a big impact on the hospitals,” he added, but those without a shot are “at much greater risk than they realize.”
What are experts predicting?
“We know that various churches are returning to indoor worship and that people who are unvaccinated might be among those who choose to gather. While attending a large, indoor church service is safe for people who are fully vaccinated, it is one of the most unsafe activities for people who have not yet gotten their vaccines,” said Dr. Brannon Traxler, DHEC’s director of public health.
Vaccine trends
Beaufort County’s seven-day average of new first-dose vaccinations as of Sunday had plummeted to about 199 per day (more recent data is skewed because of a Memorial Day delay in DHEC’s coronavirus updates).
The county, though, is still ranked fifth statewide for its inoculation rate of 4,177 vaccine recipients per 10,000 residents 12 or older, according to DHEC.
Case trends
Beaufort County has recorded only 48 confirmed coronavirus cases since May 25.
The county’s two-week incidence rate as of Tuesday, meanwhile, was 44.2 cases per 100,000 people, which is a “low” rate under DHEC’s definition.
“We have a lot to feel positive about,” said Sweat, of MUSC. “Two to three weeks from now, we’ll have a lot more answers about all our paranoia” related to a possible surge of infections.
Latest COVID-19 research
Unvaccinated nursing home residents are apparently offered some level of protection against COVID-19 when a high number of other residents and staff get doses, according to research published in The New England Journal of Medicine on May 19.
A team of scientists reported that, with the use of face masks and other infection control measures, significant vaccine uptake appears to reduce cases among “small numbers” of unvaccinated residents in congregate settings.
“These findings show the real-world effectiveness of the mRNA vaccines in reducing the incidence of asymptomatic and symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections in a vulnerable nursing home population,” the researchers wrote in a letter to the editor.
What else is going on?
Kelly, of DHEC, told reporters that the agency has expanded a program to bring COVID-19 vaccines to homebound people.
DHEC originally piloted the initiative in Jasper and Hampton counties after The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette profiled Jim Brown, a Beaufort lawyer, who in early February argued that DHEC had to find a way to inoculate homebound S.C. seniors to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The program, which will run through December, now covers all 46 counties in the state, Kelly said.
Residents can call DHEC at (866) 365-8110 from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. seven days a week to schedule an appointment.
This story was originally published June 4, 2021 at 4:00 AM.
