SOUTH CAROLINA, USA — To better understand the recent spike in coronavirus cases in South Carolina, News 19 turned to the experts.
We spoke with Dr. Ali Mokdad, a professor of health metrics sciences at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) and chief strategy officer for population health at the University of Washington. He is a part of the team that has created popular models for predicting the spread of COVID-19.
After reviewing the data available for South Carolina, Dr. Mokdad says he was alarmed at what he saw.
"My concerns are the cases are rising at a time they should be coming down, so that's very concerning."
According to Dr. Mokdad, the recent spike could be caused by two things: increased testing efforts across the state and increased mobility.
He says he believes there was "a relaxation of social distancing prematurely. So you're seeing an increase of circulation of the virus."
Right now, Dr. Mokdad says there are two important messages that need to be spread. One is for the public health system, and the other is to South Carolina residents.
When it comes to the public, Dr. Mokdad is stressing the importance of listening to suggestions from health experts.
"We're seeing an increase of cases in our own state, in our own neighborhoods. We have to be very careful. We can't, right now, relax our measures. We have to wear our masks and try to stay away from each other," he says.
Dr. Mokdad used the example of where two months ago, when strict stay-at-home orders were in place, people would go out into public with masks and made sure to stay socially distant from others. He says cases were much lower during this time as people were staying home and taking extra precautions. But now that social distancing has become more relaxed, people are mobilizing and getting back to their normal lives.
According to Dr. Mokdad, this is where we are "seeing the impact of people letting down their guards."
In regards to the public health system, Dr. Mokdad is stressing the need for departments to have a concrete plan before relaxing social distancing measures.
"From a public health standpoint, if you want to relax, you have to have a plan for testing, tracing and isolating... If we are seeing this increase continue, then we have to dial back some of the social distancing measures and we have to go back a little bit in order to make sure we can control this virus and control it's spread."
Dr. Mokdad also talked about the importance of tracking hospital bed occupancy in our state.
"I would look at my hospitals. If I'm seeing an increase in hospital capacity...then I have to scale back," he says. "You want your hospitals to have the capacity to treat patients. Not only Covid, but other conditions"
According to Dr. Mokdad, our state needs to be monitoring cases as they increase, but if hospital admissions are increasing as well, then "that's an alarming signal."
As of May 16, the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) said there is a statewide hospital bed utilization rate of 68.37%. There are 7,175 hospital beds in use and 3,320 beds available. Of those 7,175 inpatient beds currently being used, 571 of them are occupied by patients who have either tested positive or are under investigation for COVID-19.
To create IHME's extensive models, Dr. Mokdad says his team uses "all available data, mainly from John's Hopkins in terms of cases we've reported and tests and how many are reported positive on a daily basis. And then we include those in a model that takes into account several variables."