South Carolina reports 2,800 COVID-19 cases, 59 deaths over five days

South Carolina added nearly a week’s worth of new COVID-19 data on Monday, reporting more than 2,800 new cases and 59 deaths.

So far in November, the state Department of Health and Environmental Control has seen fewer than 1,000 COVID cases every day. A similar streak of lower numbers hasn’t occurred since June, 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.

The 59 new deaths over the five-day span brings the statewide death toll to 14,209. More than 400 people have died of COVID-19 in South Carolina over the past month, the lowest amount since August.

The delay in reporting was caused by the holiday weekend. DHEC reported 440 cases on Monday with four deaths; 255 cases and 12 deaths Sunday; 577 cases and no deaths on Saturday; 846 cases and nine deaths Friday; and 735 new cases and 34 deaths on Thursday.

At least 779 of the new 2,853 cases reported were listed as “probable” rather than confirmed. That brings the state’s total COVID-19 case count to more than 917,000 since March 2020.

The state health department said cases reported came from testing completed two days earlier.

About 37% of the new cases reported for the past five days were people age 30 and under. Children 10 and younger made up 11.9% of the new cases, while 10.7% 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 50%.