Chester County has one of the worst COVID outbreaks in SC. What about York, Lancaster?
Chester County’s coronavirus outbreak is the ninth worst in the state, The New York Times reported Wednesday.
York and Lancaster counties are not too far behind, falling within the top 25 worst outbreaks in South Carolina’s 46 counties, according to the recent report.
South Carolina, in the last week, has had 105 new infections per 100,000 people, which is the second highest COVID case rate of all the states, The Times reported.
Chester County got its ninth-worst spot with a case rate of 119 new infections per 100,000 people in the last week, according to the report.
Last Thursday, the county reported its highest seven-day case average to date at 42, according to data from the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control. The average fell Wednesday to 37 new infections per day.
DHEC’s Public Health Director Dr. Brannon Traxler said Wednesday that the state’s cases are rising, especially in schools, because too few people in South Carolina are vaccinated or “consistently and properly” wearing masks, allowing the highly transmissible delta variant rapidly spread.
“From a public health standpoint, we know that the answers to stopping the spread of this virus are vaccines, wearing masks, washing hands and practicing physical distancing,” Traxler said.
York County has had 104 new infections per 100,000 people in the last week, making it the 19th worst outbreak in the state, according to The Times’ report.
Last week, York County’s seven-day average was 248 new infections per day, according to DHEC. The county’s average jumped Wednesday to 284, mirroring averages reported at the pandemic’s height in January.
Traxler said there’s no one person or group to blame the state’s COVID outbreak.
“DHEC is not interested, myself included, in pointing fingers or blaming one person or group of people because this pandemic, which really is unprecedented as we’ve all heard so many times, is so complex,” she said. “We all have individual choices to make.”
And Lancaster County has had 97 new COVID cases per 100,000 people in the last week, ranking it 24th in the state’s worst outbreaks, according to The Times.
The county’s seven-day average fell slightly Wednesday to 88 new infections per day, according to DHEC. Lancaster County’s average has been slightly declining since it peaked last Thursday at 96. In January, Lancaster County averaged about 100 cases per day.
Also on Wednesday, officials announced that a staff member at a Lancaster middle school died from COVID-19 complications. The teacher’s death comes shortly after a 16-year-old Andrew Jackson High School student died in August as a result of the virus.
Latest county level data
Here’s the latest coronavirus data for York, Lancaster and Chester counties:
York County
New cases reported Wednesday: 187 confirmed, 21 probable
New deaths reported Wednesday: None
Seven-day average of new cases: 284 confirmed infections per day
Two-week incidence rate: 1,325 cases per 100,000 people
Vaccination rate: 44.5% of the county’s population has been fully vaccinated
Lancaster County
New cases reported Wednesday: 51 confirmed, 18 probable
New deaths reported Wednesday: None
Seven-day average of new cases: 88.3 confirmed infections per day
Two-week incidence rate: 1,267 cases per 100,000 people
Vaccination rate: 39.2% of the county’s population has been fully vaccinated
Chester County
New cases reported Wednesday: 14 confirmed, 14 probable
New deaths reported Wednesday: None
Seven-day average of new cases: 37 confirmed infections per day
Two-week incidence rate: 1,625 cases per 100,000 people
Vaccination rate: 41.6% of the county’s population has been fully vaccinated
This story was originally published September 8, 2021 at 6:01 PM.
