South Carolina reports highest daily COVID total this month ahead of Thanksgiving Day

South Carolina added more than 900 new COVID-19 cases to its total Friday, marking the highest daily total reported so far in November.

Still, Friday marked three weeks of seeing fewer than 1,000 new daily cases, according to the state Department of Health and Environmental Control. A similar streak of lower numbers hasn’t occurred since July, when daily case totals were at the lowest since the pandemic began.

The Palmetto State’s downward trend of cases over the past month shows the spread of the virus has slowed significantly compared to months earlier. Only once over the past four weeks, on Oct. 27, has the state reported more than 1,000 new daily cases

DHEC also reported 18 additional COVID-related deaths Friday, bringing the statewide death toll to 14,096. More than 760 people have died of COVID-19 in South Carolina over the past month.

At least 308 of the new cases reported Friday were listed as “probable” rather than confirmed. That brings the state’s total COVID-19 case count to more than 911,000 since March 2020.

The state conducted 25,475 tests for Friday’s data, with 3.3% coming back positive. The state health department said cases reported came from testing completed two days earlier.

The number of tests conducted over the past two months has also declined, resulting in fewer positive cases, though the positivity rate of those tests has also decreased.

About 42.5% of the new cases reported Friday were people age 30 and under. Children 10 and younger made up 14.5% of the new cases, while 14.4% of the cases were diagnosed in people between the ages of 11-20.

At the earlier height of the pandemic between December 2019 and February 2020, only 5.8% of positive cases were kids 10 and under.

The highly contagious delta variant is likely responsible for the majority of new COVID-19 cases in South Carolina, according to state health officials.

The exact number of delta cases is unknown because only a fraction of confirmed cases undergo genome sequencing, the process to determine the variant.

There have been 488 deaths — 0.0203% of all cases — as of Nov. 19 from “breakthrough” cases, meaning the person was fully vaccinated. The majority of deaths — 60% — are people age 71 and up. About 65% of those who died had comorbid conditions. And 0.8023% of all fully vaccinated people have been infected, while nearly 0.0596% of fully vaccinated people have been hospitalized.

Health officials recommend wearing a face mask and getting the coronavirus vaccine to help limit the spread of the virus.

South Carolina has one of the lowest fully vaccination rates in the country among its eligible population with an estimated 49.5%.

This story was originally published November 19, 2021 at 11:52 AM with the headline "South Carolina reports highest daily COVID total this month ahead of Thanksgiving Day."

Andrew Caplan

The State

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Andrew Caplan is a watchdog journalist who hails from Florida. He comes to The State Media Company after winning several statewide awards for investigative work covering elected officials, as well as public and government entities. He holds a master’s degree from the University of South Florida.