MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. — People are flocking to South Carolina’s beaches for a 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, trailing just Arizona, Arkansas, and Alabama.
One hot spot is around Myrtle Beach, which has seen COVID-19 cases jump from less than 300 at the start of June to nearly 1,600. And that only counts residents of Horry County, not visitors who get the virus on vacation.
Dr. Molly O’Dell, the director of communicable disease control for the Roanoke Alleghany Health districts, issued a warning this week to people who recently returned home from a Myrtle Beach vacation.
”One of the significant locations people are going and coming back positive over and over again is Myrtle Beach,” O’Dell told WDBJ. “We are actually suggesting that people who go, to quarantine themselves for 14 days because we’ve had so many positives from Myrtle Beach.”
Many Myrtle Beach entrepreneurs fear that more infections could result in bad publicity that hurts business.
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