Here’s what we know about COVID vaccine plans in York County, and the latest numbers
More than 35,000 COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in South Carolina as nursing homes and care facilities gear up for more.
York, Lancaster and Chester counties, like other parts of the state, have seen high positive case counts in care facilities since the spring. Those facilities join highest-risk healthcare workers at the front of the line for vaccines as soon as they’re available.
Those vaccines likely won’t be available to the general public until at least spring 2021.
“The number of Phase 1A individuals who can currently receive the vaccine is increasing each week,” state epidemiologist Linda Bell said in a release Wednesday. “Our overarching goal is to prevent further loss of life to this deadly virus.”
The vaccination program for nursing homes and care facilities is different from the one for hospital workers. Care facilities receive vaccinations through a federal program that utilizes pharmacies like CVS and Walgreens. Facilities are able to choose partner pharmacies.
Walgreens began vaccination in 12 states on Dec. 21. South Carolina wasn’t one of them. The program expands to the remaining states this week. According to the company, about 3 million residents and staff at 35,000 care facilities have Walgreens as their provider and will receive vaccines.
CVS works with more than 40,000 care facilities in all 50 states, per the company. The company works with care facilities annually for flu vaccines. The company will perform on-site vaccinations. They have given no indication when shots in South Carolina will start.
The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control doesn’t list which care sites have received vaccine doses. DHEC does list positive cases and deaths at facilities since early April. The health agency site considers an active outbreak one with any new resident or staff cases in the past 14 days.
York County has 19 listed nursing home or long-term care sites. Eight of them show active outbreaks. Facilities range from a single staff case and no deaths to dozens of resident and staff cases. The most resident cases since April come from White Oak of Rock Hill (79), Magnolia Manor Rock Hill (73) and New Hope Carolinas (69). The most staff cases come from White Oak (62), Magnolia Manor (41) and Lodge at Wellmore (35).
The most resident deaths have been reported at Rock Hill Post Acute Care (22), Magnolia Manor (11) and Carolina Gardens at Rock Hill (7). No York County site has a listed staff death.
In total, there have been 422 resident and 271 staff cases. There have been 53 resident deaths.
Four Lancaster County sites show resident and staff cases. White Oak Manor Lancaster is the only active site listed. White Oak has the most resident cases (92), staff cases (73), resident deaths (16) and staff deaths (2) of all county sites. Combined, Lancaster County sites have 201 resident and 109 staff cases, with 33 resident and two staff deaths.
Chester County has four facilities with reported cases. MUSC Health Chester Nursing Home is the only site listed with an active outbreak. That site has 24 resident and 21 staff cases since April, with three resident deaths. Palmetto Village of Chester has the most total resident cases (55) and deaths (7). Combined the county has 84 resident and 31 staff cases since April, with 11 resident deaths.
DHEC expects to start providing more vaccine data at the beginning of January.
Through Tuesday, the state had received more than 112,000 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. This week there have been 39,000 doses after weeks of 30,225 and 42,900 doses. Weekly doses will continue, though exact amounts aren’t known.
The state received 84,500 doses of the Moderna vaccine on Dec. 28. Those doses are for the federal plan with CVS and Walgreens to vaccinate at care facilities. DHEC has a limited role in the program, mainly in allotting the doses. The Moderna vaccine was picked for the care facility program in part since it doesn’t have to be stored at as cold temperatures as the Pfizer one administered in hospitals.
In South Carolina, about 31% of the more than 112,000 vaccine doses shipped or received so far have been administered. That rate, per DHEC, is well above the national usage rate of 19%.
Vaccine rollout comes as case counts continue an upward trend.
The state announced more than 2,400 new confirmed or probably COVID-19 cases on Wednesday. There were 51 confirmed or probable deaths.
An elderly Lancaster County resident died Christmas Eve. This year there have been 306 coronavirus deaths in the tri-county area (99 of them involving nursing homes or care facilities).
York County had 82 new confirmed COVID cases Wednesday. There were 15 more probable cases. Lancaster County had 55 confirmed cases. Chester County had nine.
There have been more than 300,000 confirmed or probable cases statewide this year, with 5,249 such deaths.
This story was originally published December 30, 2020 at 2:55 PM.
