Beaufort Co. sees more than 530 new COVID-19 cases over New Year’s weekend amid omicron
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COVID-19 in the Lowcountry
Here’s the latest on the omicron variant surge, COVID-19 guidance and more in the Lowcountry.
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The omicron surge is well underway in Beaufort County.
More than 530 coronavirus infections were confirmed in the county during a four-day stretch from Dec. 30 to Sunday, according to new data released Tuesday by state health officials.
The county’s seven-day average of newly confirmed cases has skyrocketed to 116 infections per day, according to the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control.
Two weeks ago, that average was 16 cases per day.
Omicron, a super contagious variant that was discovered in South Africa late last year, has dramatically reshaped the trajectory of Beaufort County’s COVID-19 outbreak.
The county’s recent, near-vertical rise in cases has already surpassed the surge of infections that it recorded in late 2020 and early 2021. (The peak of that previous spike came in mid-January 2021, when the county was averaging 113 confirmed infections per day.)
The explosive uptick in cases since Christmas also is beginning to rival the wave of delta variant infections that slammed the Lowcountry in summer 2021, when at one point an average of 155 people were testing positive every day.
“This is no time to mince words. This is flat out alarming for our state,” said Dr. Brannon Traxler, DHEC’s director of public health, during a briefing with reporters Thursday. “We need to unite together as a state to protect each other.”
DHEC is continuing to urge residents to get vaccinated and boosted, if eligible. Even though research indicates that omicron produces milder disease than delta, health officials are still concerned that the variant could overwhelm some hospital systems due to the sheer number of new infections that it generates.
“We’re at a crucial moment in the pandemic. We do not want to start 2022, our third year of COVID-19, with record numbers of hospitalizations and deaths, but we’re unfortunately headed in that direction if we don’t change things,” Traxler said. “As dire as these times are, we have the power, each one of us, to reverse that course and change how our lives will look in the near and the distant future.”
Countywide data
Here are the latest Beaufort County coronavirus numbers from DHEC:
New cases reported Tuesday: 129 confirmed, 8 probable
New cases reported Monday: 102 confirmed, 28 probable
New cases reported Sunday: 136 confirmed, 14 probable
New cases reported Saturday: 167 confirmed, 58 probable
New deaths reported from Saturday to Tuesday: 0 confirmed, 0 probable
Seven-day average of new cases: 116 confirmed infections per day
Two-week case rate: 830 cases per 100,000 people
Vaccination rate: 56% of residents have “completed vaccination”
ZIP code data since Dec. 15
Bluffton ZIP code, 29910: 440 cases
Hilton Head Island ZIP code, 29926: 142 cases
Hilton Head Island ZIP code, 29928: 137 cases
Okatie ZIP code, 29909: 146 cases
Beaufort ZIP code, 29902: 254 cases
St. Helena Island ZIP code, 29920: 102 cases
Data in this story are current as of 2 p.m. Tuesday.
This story was originally published January 4, 2022 at 2:48 PM.
