Beaufort Co. records surge of children with COVID-19; schools have 2,000 in quarantine
Beaufort County has recorded a 137% year-over-year increase in the number of COVID-19 cases reported among young children from early June to late August, according to an analysis of data from the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control.
Almost 450 cases have been logged among kids younger than 10 this summer, state data show.
During the same time period last year, though, Beaufort County reported only 189 infections in the age group, according to DHEC data.
Health experts had predicted that the super-contagious delta variant would infect more children in 2021, with kids younger than 12 still ineligible for COVID-19 vaccines.
Those concerns are now officially borne out in the DHEC data.
“Schoolchildren are more susceptible to disease spread for two main reasons,” said Dr. Brannon Traxler, the state’s public health director, during a briefing with reporters Wednesday. “Children’s immune systems are not fully developed, and disease activity thrives when groups of people are close together in indoor settings like schools or child care centers.”
How many students are infected locally?
The Beaufort County School District recorded 111 COVID-19 cases in the past three days, between Monday and Wednesday, according to district spokesperson Candace Bruder. Students accounted for 100 of those cases. Eleven employees also tested positive.
The district has surpassed 2,000 people in quarantine, with 1,962 students and 46 staff members currently quarantining, Bruder said. That’s up from 1,355 people in quarantine last week.
Since the start of school on Aug. 16, the district has logged at least 311 COVID-19 cases. Bruder stressed that nurses add new infections and quarantines into the district’s records system throughout the day, meaning that the actual number of infections now is likely higher than what has been reported.
Between Monday and Wednesday, 0.47% of the district’s roughly 21,500 students tested positive for COVID-19. That’s one in every 215 students. Of the district’s roughly 2,900 staff members, 0.38% tested positive over the course of three days.
About 9.1% of district students were quarantining, as of Thursday, along with 1.5% of staff.
Between Aug. 16 and Aug. 22, the district reported 200 student and staff COVID-19 cases.
That means about 0.82% of BCSD’s combined 24,400-person population of students and staff had tested positive for COVID-19 during that time period.
In comparison, roughly 0.72% of Beaufort County’s entire population had tested positive for COVID-19 from Aug. 16 to Aug. 22, according to DHEC and U.S. Census Bureau data.
“Many of our schools are seeing much higher cases of COVID-19 among students and faculty than they were at this time last year,” Traxler, of DHEC, said Wednesday. “This is concerning.”
What about the latest countywide data?
Beaufort County on Thursday set another record high for its seven-day average of newly confirmed cases.
The county, as of Thursday, was reporting an average of 156 cases every 24 hours, DHEC data show.
The state also announced Thursday two confirmed COVID-19 deaths and one probable coronavirus fatality.
DHEC does not release daily county-level data reflecting the percentage of local cases identified among unvaccinated or fully vaccinated people.
Here’s the latest Beaufort County coronavirus data from DHEC:
New cases reported Thursday: 134 confirmed, 28 probable
New cases reported Wednesday: 130 confirmed, 37 probable
New deaths reported from Wednesday to Thursday: 2 confirmed, 1 probable
Seven-day average of new cases: 156 confirmed infections per day
Two-week incidence rate: 1,338 cases per 100,000 people
ZIP code data as of Tuesday
Bluffton ZIP code, 29910: 1,416 cases since July 1
Hilton Head Island ZIP code, 29926: 513 cases
Hilton Head ZIP code, 29928: 216 cases
Beaufort ZIP code, 29902: 700 cases
Okatie ZIP code, 29909: 325 cases
BEHIND THE STORY
MOREHow we did this story
The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette compared COVID-19 case data recorded between June 1, 2020 and Aug. 24, 2020 to coronavirus case data reported between June 1, 2021 and Aug. 24, 2021. This allowed the newspapers to calculate the year-over-year percentage increase in the number of summer COVID-19 cases identified among young children in Beaufort County.
This story was originally published August 26, 2021 at 2:43 PM.
