COVID-19 cases hit another five-month high in SC
South Carolina recorded 1,878 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday and 902 probable cases, according to data released Thursday by the state Department of Health and Environmental Control. These numbers follow a week of daily infection counts above 2,000, which hasn’t happened since February.
Eight new confirmed deaths and one probable death also were reported. The data collected Tuesday was reported on Thursday.
Out of 12,854 COVID tests conducted, 18.7% came back positive, down about half a percentage point from Monday. This percentage still indicates a very high risk of transmission, according to CDC indicators. Percent positive refers to the number of positive COVID-19 tests in relation to all COVID-19 tests conducted.
The highly contagious delta variant is likely responsible for the majority of 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 used to determine the variant.
There have been more than 515,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases in South Carolina since the start of the pandemic and more than 631,000 cases in all. DHEC provides updated COVID-19 data Monday through Friday at 1 p.m.
