CONWAY — As COVID-19 cases rise again, Horry County has become one of South Carolina's top hotspots for the virus.
Statewide, Horry County has posted the most new COVID-19 cases in the past two weeks and the second-highest rate per capita, according to a Post and Courier analysis of state public health data.
Horry County's 2,054 cases in the two weeks through July 31, the latest state data available, was ahead of counties with bigger populations — Richland County (1,865), Greenville County (1,492) and Charleston County (1,458).
Only Kershaw County surpassed Horry County in new cases per capita over the past two weeks. Horry County's new infection rate is 50 percent higher than the South Carolina average.
Horry County health care officials are warning case numbers are headed back to where the county was a year ago, in part because of low vaccination rates and a boost in tourism across the Grand Strand.
But local governments are not planning any new restrictions.
Most of the new cases are the Delta variant, a more transmissible strain of the virus, said Gerald Harmon, vice president of Medical Affairs for Tidelands Health. And 90 percent of the cases the Tidelands Health is seeing are also not vaccinated, Harmon said.
While Horry County is one of the higher vaccinated counties, at 51 percent, only falling behind Charleston, Georgetown and McCormick counties, it is still not enough, Harmon said. Numbers need to reach 70 percent through 90 percent to reach herd immunity, he said. About 45 percent of South Carolinians are fully vaccinated.
In the past month, Tidelands has seen a massive increase in COVID-19 cases going from three or four people being admitted to due to COVID-19 in early July to 34 people currently admitted in the hospital Aug. 2.
Of those 34 cases, three of them are fully vaccinated, Harmon said.
“When you’ve been fully vaccinated, you have a very low percentage of becoming sick — if you do become sick — you can become infected,” Harmon said. “But if you do become infected you don't get very sick, you don't get sick enough to need oxygen and go to the hospital or be admitted. And you don't get sick enough to wind up on the ventilator or the ICU.
“And more importantly, you don't get sick enough to die,” Harmon added.
Conway Medical Center is seeing a similar rise in cases. As of Aug. 2, 30 people were admitted because of COVID-19, with only seven of them being fully vaccinated, spokeswoman Allyson Floyd said.
Vaccinated patients at Conway Medical are over the age of 70 who have pre-existing conditions, and even then, they are not nearly as sick as those who haven’t been vaccinated, Floyd said.
“I hope folks, especially people who are on the fence, will listen to really what's going on frontline and not so much what I call the social media hype," said Paul Richardson, Conway Medical's vice president of medical affairs. "And make the decision to get vaccinated because truly that is our best defense without a doubt.”
While the city of Myrtle Beach does not have plans at this time to bring back some early pandemic restrictions such a mask mandate, taking precautions is not out of the question, city spokesman Mark Kruea said.
“You can't discount the fact that we've lost nearly (613,000 nationwide) over the last 18 months,” Kruea said. “That's an outrageous number.”
Horry County is monitoring the spike in COVID case, but does not have any plans for a mask mandate at this time, county spokeswoman Kelly Moore said.
Andy Shain contributed from Columbia.
