Beaufort Co.’s COVID-19 positivity rate spikes to 13.6% as Delta spreads. What that means
A key metric that measures the severity of Beaufort County’s coronavirus outbreak has skyrocketed in recent days.
As of Sunday, the county’s average percentage of positive COVID-19 tests was 13.6%, according to the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control.
That seven-day average, which is also called a “positivity rate,” was only 2.2% a month ago.
A higher positivity rate suggests there’s been an increase in local COVID-19 spread and may indicate that it’s “a good time to add restrictions” to slow the pathogen’s transmission, according to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
The World Health Organization early last year recommended that governments reopen only after the percentage of positive tests was below 5% for at least two weeks.
Beaufort County’s rising positivity rate is now a crucial COVID-19 benchmark to monitor in the coming days. The average percentage of positive tests has spiked to a level not seen since mid-January, when South Carolina’s devastating winter surge first began to wane.
The county’s seven-day average of newly confirmed cases, as of Tuesday, had also increased to roughly 33 infections per day, which is the highest that average has been since early March. (Almost 70 cases were confirmed in the county Sunday.)
It remains unclear how many hospitalizations and deaths will result from this latest COVID-19 spike, with about 42.9% of the county’s estimated population fully vaccinated.
In comparison, though, to the deadly wave of infections following Christmas and Thanksgiving, the recent coronavirus uptick will inevitably impact different segments of the area’s population.
State health officials are concerned that unvaccinated residents, including kids under the age of 12, are at risk this summer as the super-contagious Delta variant spreads across South Carolina.
“Unvaccinated people are fueling the pandemic, especially unvaccinated young people,” said Dr. Brannon Traxler, the state’s public health director.
As of Sunday, 26.9% of Beaufort County’s coronavirus cases in July (139 of 515 infections) were recorded among young people aged 11 to 20, DHEC data show.
In comparison, just seven people who are 81 or older tested positive during that time frame, according to DHEC.
What’s going on at Beaufort Memorial Hospital?
Courtney McDermott, a spokeswoman for Beaufort Memorial Hospital, in a Tuesday statement confirmed that there’s been an increase in symptomatic people seeking COVID-19 tests at the medical center.
However, “as far as the origins are concerned, it’s hard to pinpoint the source(s),” she wrote.
At the emergency room, “they’ve had one or two who’ve come in because there was someone at a camp who tested positive,” McDermott wrote.
What’s next?
Public health officials are trying to mitigate Delta’s spread in South Carolina. And the extent of the variant’s impact will become clearer by early August.
Among the new developments: DHEC is continuing to urge unvaccinated residents to roll up their sleeves for a shot. The city of Savannah has again issued a mask mandate. The Bluffton Boys & Girls Club has ended its summer day camp program early due to several infections among kids and staff. And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as of 1 p.m. Tuesday was expected to reverse course and recommend that fully vaccinated people, in some circumstances, wear masks in indoor public settings.
The pandemic’s trajectory is rapidly shifting. How Beaufort County will fare is still unknown.
Note: Data in this story are current as of Tuesday afternoon.
This story was originally published July 27, 2021 at 2:41 PM.
