Despite dropping cases, York County reports 14th COVID-19 death this week
Three more COVID-19 deaths were reported in York County Thursday, marking the 14th death in the county in the last seven days, South Carolina health officials said.
In July, the county added 14 coronavirus-related deaths, according to official numbers.
Two of the residents were 65 or older. One died Saturday after contracting COVID-19, while the other died Aug. 7, the Department of Health and Environmental Control said. The third resident, between 35 and 64, died Wednesday, DHEC reported.
The county has had 46 confirmed coronavirus-related deaths since the start of the pandemic, according to DHEC.
A death was also reported in Chester County. The resident was 65 or older and died Wednesday, DHEC officials said. Based on DHEC’s count, there have now been 17 confirmed coronavirus-related deaths in Chester County.
Chester County Coroner Terry Tinker and York County Coroner Sabrina Gast said they are aware of the deaths reported by DHEC, yet neither coroner’s office has yet received details of the most recent deaths on Wednesday attributed to COVID-19.
DHEC officials said Thursday that 424 more people had tested positive for the virus across the state, which is the lowest number of cases reported in the state since June 7, when 324 cases were added, according to DHEC.
That number marked the 13th consecutive day that the number of new COVID-19 cases reported in South Carolina was less than 1,000. Those cases brought the total of South Carolinians diagnosed with coronavirus to 113,107.
The agency also announced that 42 more people, including the four from York and Chester, have died after contracting COVID-19, bringing the death toll to 2,494.
More coronavirus cases
Cases in all three counties followed the recent trend of declining daily case counts.
Lancaster County added 11 cases Thursday, which is one of the lowest case counts in recent weeks, according to DHEC. The county has had a total of 1,536 cases.
Chester County now has had a total of 821 cases after it added five cases Thursday.
York County’s daily case count continues to drop. The county reported 22 cases Thursday, for a total of 4,057 cases, DHEC officials said.
In July, York County averaged 60 coronavirus cases a day. In August, the county has reported more than 60 cases on three days.
There’s less testing
With only 5,234 individual tests results reported Wednesday, the percentage of positive tests was 8.1%, DHEC said. That’s the lowest percent reported in the state in a month.
In recent weeks, the percentage of tests coming back has ranged from 10% to 18%, but it has continued to decline since July, when the average percent was around 20% or more. In May, at its lowest point, the percentage of positive tests averaged 2% to 4%.
Since March, labs across the state have completed 980,834 tests.
DHEC officials said in recent weeks, fewer people are getting tested for the virus. The state averaged about 10,800 tests a day in July, and this month, the number of people tested daily has reached below 3,000.
Starting in September, DHEC plans to have at least one free testing site each week in all 46 counties, officials said.
Hospitalized patients rising
Hospitals in York and Lancaster counties are filling up.
About 88% of York County’s beds in use, and in Lancaster County, 99% of beds are occupied. There is one hospital bed available in the county, DHEC said.
Officials did not say how many of those beds were used for COVID-19 patients.
However, the number of hospitalized coronavirus patients across the state peaked at more than 1,700 at the end of July, and has slightly decreased since.
Of the 1,006 people hospitalized across the state with confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19, 262 are in intensive care and, of those, 144 are on ventilators, state health officials said Thursday.
Of the state’s 10,199 total inpatient hospital beds, 1,808 are available, meaning about 82% of the state’s beds are in use.
Cases by ZIP code
As of Wednesday night, there are cases in the following ZIP codes:
York County
▪ 29702 - 97
▪ 29704 - 62
▪ 29708 - 402
▪ 29710 - 458
▪ 29715 - 469
▪ 29717 - 19
▪ 29726 - 14
▪ 29730 - 1,031
▪ 29732 - 966
▪ 29742 - 29
▪ 29743 - 8
▪ 29745 - 454
Lancaster County
▪ 29058 - 73
▪ 29067 - 135
▪ 29707 - 286
▪ 29720 - 1,089
Chester County
▪ 29014 - 48
▪ 29031 - 23
▪ 29055 - 119
▪ 29706 - 509
▪ 29712 - 30
▪ 29714 - 65
▪ 29729 - 66
