MUSC COVID-19 Epidemiology Intelligence Project Florence

COVID-19 Status Summary for the Florence area (Florence, Marion, Darlington, and Williamsburg Counties)

Updated 3/22/2023 | About This Project

The number of weekly COVID-19 infections officially reported is vastly under-counted due to home testing.

It is estimated that the number of actual COVID-19 cases is 6 to 10 times the number officially reported.

Based on these estimates, last week (March 12th through March 18th) in the Florence area:

What does the graph about tell us?

The most recent surge of COVID-19 cases began in the middle of May 2022. We are currently in a stable period.
On June 19th, 2022 the number of daily COVID-19 cases plateaued at a high level, with the number of officially recorded COVID-19 infections between 35 to 45 cases per day for every 100,000 people
As of last week, we had 3 cases per day per 100,000 people. Since most people now test for COVID-19 with home test kits only about 10 to 17 percent of infections are officially recorded.
- Adjusting for under-counting due to home testing, it is likely that the actual number of infections per 100,000 people per day is between 18 and 30. Those numbers are equal to less than 1 percent of the population infected every week.

What does the graph above tell us?

This graphic compares the officially reported COVID-19 infections from testing in the Florence area to the amount of COVID-19 virus detected in wastewater from a sewage treatment plant in the Florence / Darlington area.
Detection of COVID-19 from wastewater often picks up increases and decreases earlier than from COVID-19 testing data.
Recent analysis of wastewater data from Florence has shown a low volume of COVID-19 virus detected in wastewater, and the number of cases are also showing declines.
Note that the wastewater testing is from a sewage treatment plant that does not serve the entire Florence area, and the testing data comes from the entire population of the Florence area (Florence, Marion, Darlington, and Williamsburg counties).

This graphic shows the trends in the daily number of COVID-19 infections since the beginning of the pandemic for our area.
There have been 5 distinct surges. We have had a surge in both the summer and the winter each year.
The most recent surge was one of the longest we have experienced to date.
Bear in mind that the recent surge was different from past surges in several important ways:
- In the recent surge there was significant under-counting of cases due to home testing for COVID-19.
- Mitigation strategies such as mask use and distancing were much lower than in past surges.
- The current predominant COVID-19 variant (BA.5) is the most effective variant yet at infecting people who are vaccinated, and reinfecting people who got COVID-19 in the past.
- We now have access to medications that can reduce the severity of illness from COVID-19.
- The death rate from COVID-19 is now much lower, due largely to immunity from vaccinations and prior infections. Regardless, there are now approximately 283 people dying a day from COVID-19 in the United States, equivalent to 103,295 people a year.

COVID-19 Variants Based on Genetic Sequencing Conducted by the MUSC Molecular Pathology Laboratory.

Click here for the latest information on Covid-19 Variants of Interest:

MUSC COVID-19 Situation Assessment

Click here for a description of the Methods and Metrics:

Metric	Status for the week of March 12th-March 18th
Weekly Change of Reported COVID-19 Infections	DECREASING: -12%
Trajectory of documented cases (Increasing or Decreasing)	GREEN:
Number of Reported COVID-19 Cases in last week	YELLOW: 58 new cases reported
Diagnostic Testing Availability	GREEN
Return of Diagnostic Test Results	GREEN
Hospital Capacity to treat Critical Patients	GREEN
New Covid-19 Hospital Admissions per 100k population (7 day average)	GREEN

This graph shows how quickly the number of infections are changing week to week.

This graph shows the growth rate based on the number of total cases in the Florence area and indicates if the community is flattening the curve.

This graph shows the area hospitals ability to treat critical patients.

Modeling from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) shows projections for South Carolina.