Monday’s COVID-19 case report for South Carolina

The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) today announced 140 new cases of the novel coronavirus COVID-19, and 15 additional deaths.

This brings the total number of people confirmed to have COVID-19 in South Carolina to 7,792 and those who have died to 346.

Eleven of those deaths occurred in elderly individuals in Charleston (1), Clarendon (1), Florence (1), Hampton (1), Lancaster (1), Lexington (3), and Richland (3) counties, and four of the deaths occurred in middle-aged individuals in Fairfield (1), Florence (2), and Sumter (1) counties.

The number of new cases by county are listed below.
Aiken (1), Allendale (1), Anderson (1), Beaufort (1), Berkeley (3), Charleston (10), Chester (3), Chesterfield (1), Clarendon (2), Darlington (5), Dillon (7), Dorchester (2), Fairfield (1), Florence (21), Georgetown (1), Greenville (13), Greenwood (1), Horry (5), Kershaw (4), Lancaster (1), Laurens (1), Lee (9), Lexington (6), Marion (1), Marlboro (2), Richland (19), Saluda (3), Spartanburg (3), Sumter (3), Union (1), Williamsburg (5), York (3)

DHEC’s COVID-19 webpage is updated daily with a map of positive cases as well as the most current recommendations for protecting against COVID-19.

DHEC Reaches Goal to Identify 1,000 Contact Tracers
As South Carolina enhances its testing efforts, DHEC set goal with its AccelerateSC partners to identify 1,000 contact tracers by May 31. Today, DHEC met that goal.

Contact tracing is a disease control measure that helps stop the spread of diseases like COVID-19 by identifying close contacts of people who tested positive for an illness. During normal operations, DHEC employs 20 contact tracers but has increased that number to more than 400 as part of the agency’s COVID-19 response. Today, DHEC has retained an additional 1,400 contact tracers through contracts with two private staffing companies, Apple One and C-Trace. Additionally, since DHEC created a contact tracing webpage on May 8, 667 members of the public have expressed interest in receiving training to become one.

 

Testing for COVID-19 in S.C. Nursing Homes
Today, DHEC began the first of three phases of testing in South Carolina nursing homes. As announced May 6, DHEC — with testing support from LabCorp and extensive coordination and cooperation from the South Carolina Healthcare Association and Leading Age South Carolina — will test approximately 40,000 residents and staff members at the state’s 194 nursing homes. An estimated 15,000 residents and staff at 74 facilities are part of this initial round of testing. Results of the testing will be reflected in the impacted facilities list on DHEC’s COVID-19 demographics page. The list is updated twice weekly, on Tuesdays and Fridays.