State health officials report uptick in Coronavirus activity, urges vaccinations as precaution

COLUMBIA, SC — State health officials call it the new normal, as they report an uptick in Coronavirus activity for the entire month of July.

They also saw a jump in hospitalizations across the state.

“This is the fourth year in a row in the summer that we’ve seen the late summer increase, so I think it is to be expected but the trends so far are not looking like something that would be as significant as in those early couple of years," explained, SC Director of Public Health, Dr. Brannon Traxler.

Despite the normal bump, Dr. Brannon Traxler urges parents and caregivers sending children back to school to make sure they are up to date on their vaccines, less than 20% of children ages 5-11 have completed their vaccine series statewide.

“The biggest thing is prevention and the biggest way to do that is with the vaccines but not just the Covid-19 vaccine. We are seeing still are usual sporadic flu cases in the summer and we’re also at the point of the year when last year we saw the RSV cases.”

Last November, South Carolina led the nation with record-breaking flu cases and RSV cases, the trend was in mostly school-aged children.

This will also be the first fall without public data collection and information from DHEC as the public health emergency for Coronavirus expired in the spring.

School nurses in the Midlands noticed new COVID policy changes for the school year.

“DHEC has removed those symptoms for COVID, right now we’ll be focusing more on fever. I think what people will feel the most is the lifting of the COVID symptoms and having to go home because we know kids can have coughs for other reasons but we still had to send them home," says Dawn MacAdams, Richland Two.

DHEC officials add that we can expect to see another bump in the winter as the virus continues to mutate and hopefully weakens.