On Friday, South Carolina health officials reported a surge in new COVID-19 cases — nearly four weeks after Gov. Henry McMaster lifted stay-at-home lockdown orders.
The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) announced 331 new coronavirus cases and 13 deaths on Friday. It was the worst ever day for new cases recorded, next to May 16 and April 16, which both recorded 276 cases.
In the last few weeks, South Carolina has seen somewhat of a surge in COVID-19 cases. While the last seven days have averaged 211 cases a day, May 16-22 averaged 182 cases per day, while the previous week averaged 158 cases per day, and the first week of May averaged 163 cases per day.
In April, South Carolina averaged 170 COVID-19 cases per day. So far in May, that number has jumped to 177 cases per day.
Officials have ramped up testing in South Carolina and surpassed their goal of testing 110,00 people just in the month of May. As of May 28, 194,047 total tests have been conducted. 177,126 of those tests were negative.
Greenville and Richland County — the two largest counties in South Carolina — are tied for the most cases in the state with 1,461.
State health officials estimate there have been 8,975 cases in Richland and Greenville counties since March.
Florence County has the third highest cases in the state at 637.
On Friday, South Carolina reported 13 new deaths, one of the highest days since the state began reporting in March. Earlier this week, the state also set a record for the highest amount of COVID-19 cases in one day with 20 on May 27.
“Eight of the deaths occurred in elderly individuals from Berkeley (1), Darlington (1), Fairfield (1), Florence (2), Greenville (1), Horry (1) and Spartanburg (1) counties, and five of the deaths occurred in middle-aged individuals from Florence (1), Laurens (1), Lee (1), Saluda (1), and Williamsburg (1) counties,” SCDHEC said Thursday.
In total, 399 COVID-19 patients were hospitalized on Friday.
As of May 28, 85 percent of the state’s 11,131 COVID-19 patients have recovered.
Here’s a look at the amount of percent positive cases vs. testing in South Carolina, which appears to be going up.
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