South Carolina reports nearly 1,800 new COVID-19 cases, 47 deaths

South Carolina reported nearly 1,800 new COVID-19 cases and 47 more deaths on Tuesday, according to the state Department of Health and Environmental Control.

Since the start of the pandemic last year, 12,259 people have died from the disease.

DHEC said the 1,791 new cases reported Tuesday came from testing completed two days earlier. That brings the state’s COVID-19 case count more than 852,000, according to DHEC.

Of the new cases reported, 257 were considered “probable” rather than confirmed.

The state conducted 19,821 COVID-19 tests, with 11% coming back positive.

At least 41.7% of the new cases reported were people aged 30 and under.

Children 10 and younger made up 12.3% of the new cases, while 15.6% of the cases were diagnosed in people between the ages of 11 and 20.

At the earlier height of the pandemic between December and February, only 5.8% of positive cases were kids 10 and under.

The highly contagious delta variant is likely responsible for the majority of new COVID-19 cases in South Carolina, according to state health officials. The exact number of delta cases is unknown because only a fraction of confirmed cases undergo genome sequencing, the process to determine the variant.

There have been 256 deaths — 0.011% of all cases — as of Sept. 24 from “breakthrough” cases, meaning the person was fully vaccinated. The majority of deaths — 65% — are people ages 71 and up. About 65% of those who died had comorbid conditions. And 0.47% of all fully vaccinated people have been infected, while just 0.04% of fully vaccinated people have been hospitalized.

Health officials recommend wearing a face mask and getting the coronavirus vaccine to help limit the spread of the virus. South Carolina’s vaccination rate is 51.8%, among the lowest in the country.