‘Gravely concerned’: Public defender blasts Hampton County officials after COVID cases
The region’s top public defender is alleging Hampton County officials ignored COVID-19 guidelines in the courthouse and put staff members at risk of exposure while COVID ravages the county with the second-highest infection rates in the state.
About 20 courthouse employees were put at risk, 14th Circuit chief public defender Stephanie J. Smart-Gittings said, after the Hampton County clerk of court tested positive for COVID but kept the courthouse open for days after.
The county’s top administrator argues the county followed protocols, but the responsibility for deciding whether those employees were allowed to return to work was out of her hands.
On Friday, Aug. 13, Clerk of Court Mylinda Nettles tested positive for COVID, and employees were sent home, Smart-Gittings said. On Monday, however, the courthouse reopened, and Nettles told her two employees to go to work while she remained home, she said.
Smart-Gittings expressed her concerns to the county’s Emergency Management director, Susanne Peeples, but said the county council deferred to Nettles in whether to keep the courthouse open. Days later, one of the clerk’s unvaccinated employees tested positive after initially testing negative, and the courthouse had to be vacated again.
“I feel like [the council] should’ve usurped the clerk’s discretion and made the decision to close the courthouse for the safety of the other employees and the citizens of Hampton,” Smart-Gittings said on Friday.
Not until the unvaccinated employee tested positive did the Clerk’s office close for 10 days.
Gittings questioned the county’s protocols in an email to Hampton County Council members this week.
“There were quite a few of us who were very apprehensive about being in the courthouse knowing that there was an employee who was unvaccinated and had exposure to the clerk,” Smart-Gittings wrote. “The County administrator put all of us at risk for COVID-19, and I am gravely concerned about her decision to ignore the CDC guidelines when it comes to the Clerk of Court’s office. Our lives and our families’ lives are just as important.”
Hampton County has the second-highest COVID case rate in the state, according to recent data from S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control. Second only to Dorchester County, Hampton County has a rate of 1,816 cases per 100,000 people.
Hampton County had 574 confirmed COVID cases in the month of August, DHEC states. An average of 27 cases per day were reported in Hampton County, a 60% increase from the average two weeks ago, The New York Times reported Friday.
‘Hampton County is doing pretty freaking good’
Reached by phone Friday, Hampton County’s administrator defended herself and the actions of the county.
County Administrator Rose Dobson-Elliott said she has no authority over an elected official, so the decision to keep the courthouse open and allow employees to return to work was Nettles’.
Dobson-Elliott also said that although she notified county council members of the situation when the courthouse had to be closed and cleaned the first time, she did not consult with them, and they did not make any decision about whether to allow staff in the building.
Both times an employee in the courthouse tested positive, the building was immediately closed and sanitized following CDC guidelines, she said.
Some situations, the administrator said, such as when an employee comes to work despite having close contact with someone who has tested positive, are out of local government’s control. Dobson-Elliott said someone takes the temperature of everyone who enters the building. They’ve made hand sanitizer readily available, and county officials continue to encourage people to practice good hygiene, wear a face mask, get vaccinated, and not come to work if they feel ill.
“We had done all that is within our power to try to protect individuals,” Dobson-Elliott said. “It is on the person to protect themselves as much as they can.”
She said no one else in the courthouse has tested positive since the clerk’s staff member.
“I think Hampton County is doing pretty freaking good for its size and resources,” Dobson-Elliott said. “You just hope other people do the right thing.”
Smart-Gittings said that in other situations when an employee in her office tested positive, all other staff quarantined for 14 days. She also said the only office that was sanitized was the Clerk’s office, not the whole building.
COVID has taken a toll on Hampton County.
Smart-Gittings said she’s lost three family members to the virus, including her mother and father this summer within days of each other. Other Hampton County employees, including courthouse staff and law enforcement officers, have lost family to COVID.
More than a week after the Clerk of Court was diagnosed with COVID, her husband died from the virus.
