People are flocking to South Carolina's beaches for vacation after being cooped up by COVID-19 for months. But the coronavirus is taking no vacation. The state now has the fourth-highest new infection rate in the nation when adjusted for population.
And those numbers include only people who live in the county. The figures do not count anyone who tests positive after taking COVID-19 home along with a souvenir hermit crab or an airbrushed T-shirt. Business leaders estimate 20 million people visit the area each year, 60 times Horry County’s population of about 330,000.
Christy Kasler is from another state that produces many Myrtle Beach visitors — Ohio. As she sat in a chair and watched her daughter-in-law play with her 11-month-old grandson on his first trip to the beach, she said the recommendation to self-quarantine when she returns to her Nelsonville home was asking too much.“If I get it, I could have just as easily got it back home,” Kasler said. “You can’t live your life in fear.
The state sets records almost daily for the number of new cases, the percentage of positive tests and the number of people in the hospital with COVID-19. “We understand that what we’re continuing to ask of everyone is not easy and that many are tired of hearing the same warnings and of taking the same daily precautions, but this virus does not take a day off,” state epidemiologist Dr. Linda Bell said in a statement.
Some of those businesses remain closed. Others that reopened are struggling with the extra cost of cleaning, food and other supplies, and the reduction in revenue because they cannot accommodate as many customers under social-distancing rules.
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