How many students are sick? A look at COVID-19 cases, quarantines in Beaufort Co. schools
The number of new COVID-19 cases among students and staff at the Beaufort County School District has continued to drop in recent days.
From Sept. 13 through Sunday, the district recorded 105 student infections and eight staff cases, according to BCSD spokeswoman Candace Bruder.
There also were 1,479 students in quarantine and 36 staff members quarantined, Bruder said.
Those are the lowest infection and quarantine numbers that BCSD has recorded since the school year began on Aug. 16. And they reflect a week-over-week drop in the number of cases and quarantines.
For context: Between Sept. 6 and Sept. 12, there were 179 student cases and 13 staff cases, Bruder previously said. During that same period, there were 2,254 students in quarantine and 38 staff members quarantined.
The lower BCSD numbers coincided with a drop in COVID-19 cases countywide.
Beaufort County’s seven-day average of newly confirmed infections, as of Wednesday, had dipped to 63 cases per day, which is the lowest that average has been since early August.
In other words, the county’s surge of delta variant infections appears to be easing after peaking late last month.
Frank Rodriguez, superintendent of BCSD, during a Tuesday school board meeting, also weighed in on the district’s latest COVID-19 data.
“I’m not going to sit here and tell you that with 100% certainty that there hasn’t been any transmission in a school with (the) delta variant,” Rodriguez said, “but what I can tell you is that we are hearing a lot in the contact tracing around external gatherings and parties.”
“We are seeing transmissions that occur as a result of pool parties, as a result of outside gatherings ... things like that,” he said.
Countywide data
Here are the latest Beaufort County coronavirus numbers from the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control:
New cases reported Wednesday: 25 confirmed, 5 probable
New cases reported Tuesday: 38 confirmed, 5 probable
New deaths reported from Tuesday to Wednesday: 2 confirmed, 2 probable
Seven-day average of new cases: 63 confirmed infections per day
Two-week incidence rate: 793 cases per 100,000 people
Vaccination rate: 49.2% of residents have been fully vaccinated
Immunity estimate as of Sept. 15: 68% of residents have some level of immunity against COVID-19, according to the Medical University of South Carolina
