FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
May 26, 2020

COLUMBIA, S.C. — The Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) today announced that 110,316 tests for COVID-19 have been performed in South Carolina since May 1.

Earlier this month, DHEC and its community partners set a goal to test two percent of the state’s population, or 110,000 South Carolinians, by May 31. As of today, South Carolina has exceeded that goal.

“We want South Carolinians to know that DHEC is doing everything we can to stop the spread of COVID-19, and a key component of that is increasing our testing capacity,” said Rick Toomey, DHEC Director. “DHEC continues to work with federally qualified health centers, hospitals, and other community partners to expand COVID-19 testing across the state as part of our statewide testing strategy. Together, we can increase the availability of testing and help everyone continue to take the steps needed to help slow the spread of COVID-19.”

As part of our ongoing efforts to increase testing in underserved and rural communities across the state, DHEC continues to work with community partners to set up mobile testing clinics that bring testing to these communities. Currently, there are 74 mobile testing events scheduled through July 2 with new testing events added regularly. South Carolinians can find a nearby mobile testing clinic event at scdhec.gov/covid19mobileclinics.

Additionally, there are currently 145 permanent testing locations at health care facilities throughout the state. These testing sites can be found at scdhec.gov/covid19testing.

A total of 178,119 total tests have been conducted in the state (by both DHEC’s Public Health Laboratory and private labs) since March 5, 2020.

Latest COVID-19 Update (May 26, 2020):
Today, DHEC announced 253 new cases of the novel coronavirus COVID-19 and 6 additional deaths.

This brings the total number of people confirmed to have COVID-19 in South Carolina to 10,416 and those who have died to 446.

Four deaths occurred in elderly individuals from Fairfield (1), Florence (1), Greenville (1), and Spartanburg (1) counties, and two deaths occurred in young adults in Greenville (1) and Lexington (1) counties. Both young adults had underlying health conditions.

The number of new cases by county are listed below.
Aiken (3), Anderson (3), Beaufort (9), Berkeley (1), Calhoun (1), Charleston (8), Cherokee (3), Chester (3), Chesterfield (9), Clarendon (2), Colleton (2), Darlington (8), Dillon (4), Dorchester (1), Florence (7), Georgetown (2), Greenville (46), Greenwood (10), Horry (5), Jasper (1), Kershaw (6), Lancaster (1), Laurens (1), Lee (9), Lexington (14), Marion (1), Marlboro (5), Newberry (2), Orangeburg (10), Pickens (3), Richland (21), Saluda (1), Spartanburg (36), Sumter (1), Union (3), Williamsburg (5), York (6)

New Chronic Conditions Data Part of COVID-19 Webpage Update
Today’s COVID-19 webpage update include new information about the virus’s association with chronic health conditions, also referred to as underlying health conditions. This data provides a breakdown of COVID-19 cases and 14 commonly seen chronic illnesses (such as heart disease, diabetes, asthma, kidney disease and others) of both positive cases and those who have died. Individuals with certain underlying conditions are at higher risk for experiencing severe illness or death from the COVID-19. 

Updated Data, Demographics and Impacted Facilities List
Today’s website information includes updated new demographic data, a newly calculated recovery rate, a current list of nursing homes and similar facilities impacted by COVID-19, and more. While DHEC’s daily web updates include positive cases and deaths, hospital bed capacity, number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients, testing numbers, confirmed and estimated cases by ZIP code, testing sites and more, the twice weekly updates include this additional information for the public.

*As new information is provided to the department, some changes in cases may occur. Cases are reported based on the person’s county of residence, as it is provided to the department. DHEC’s COVID-19 map will adjust to reflect any reclassified cases.