Coronavirus updates for Dec. 30: Here’s what to know in South Carolina this week
We’re tracking the most up-to-date information about the coronavirus and vaccines in South Carolina. Check back each week for updates.
More than 9,500 new COVID cases in SC last week
The S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control on Thursday, Dec. 29, reported 9,574 COVID-19 cases for the week ending Dec. 24 and 10 coronavirus-related deaths for the week ending Dec. 17.
The counts include probable and confirmed coronavirus cases and deaths.
An estimated 1.7 million coronavirus cases have been reported in South Carolina, and more than 18,800 people have died of the virus since March 2020, according to state health officials. Data shows COVID-19 cases are up nearly 18% compared with this time last week.
As of Dec. 29, about 600 people across the state were hospitalized with the coronavirus (with 55 hospitals reporting), including 74 patients being treated in intensive care, the latest data shows. Starting Dec. 20, the SC DHEC said its weekly COVID hospitalizations reporting would “no longer include data on ventilations and weekly hospital trends.”
The omicron subvariant BA.5 accounted for nearly 80% of coronavirus strains identified in South Carolina for the week ending Dec. 10, according to the latest available data.
The DHEC’s Public Health Laboratory conducts sequencing on randomly chosen samples as part of nationwide efforts to find out about new strains of the virus, the agency’s website reads.
The latest data on statewide coronavirus vaccinations wasn’t available at the time of this report.
Common diabetes drug may cut risk of long COVID, research suggests
A commonly prescribed diabetes drug may help significantly reduce the risk of experiencing lingering COVID-19 symptoms, also known as “long COVID,” according to results of a recent drug trial.
The 10-month trial was led by researchers at multiple U.S. universities and enrolled 1,100 adults between 30 and 85 years old who were recently diagnosed with the virus, McClatchy News reported. A select group of participants was given the diabetes drug metformin, while others received a placebo.
At the end of the trial, 8.4% of study participants reported being diagnosed with long COVID, according to the study results. Only 6.3% of those who took the metformin experienced long COVID compared to 10.6% of those in the control group who didn’t.
“Future research is needed to understand optimal dosing regimens for preventing Long Covid, whether extended release is effective in persons who have side effects from immediate release metformin, and whether metformin could be used as a treatment for Long Covid,” study authors wrote.
To learn more, read the full story here.
COVID 2022 review: What we learned about COVID this year
We’re three years into the COVID-19 pandemic, and the world has a better understanding of the upper respiratory illness than it did when the earliest U.S. cases were reported in January 2020.
In 2022 alone, several studies — both peer-reviewed and pre-prints — were published in journals and offered expanded knowledge about the coronavirus, which has continued to evolve.
Some of the year’s most noteworthy research included a study examining the impact of COVID-19 booster shots on omicron reinfection; the odds of experiencing “long” COVID after an initial infection; and how dogs can sniff out long-term virus symptoms, McClatchy News reported.
Read the full recap here.
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