Special Report

Some States Are Vaccinating for COVID Faster Than Others, Here's How South Carolina Stacks Up

Samuel Stebbins

Published: April 1, 2021 5:30 am

Rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine in the United States got off to a much slower start than the federal government initially anticipated. In response, the Biden Administration announced plans to vaccinate 300 million Americans by the end of the summer. Whether or not this timeline is achievable remains to be seen. Currently, 53,423,486 people have been fully vaccinated, or 16.3% of the U.S. population.

So far, states have largely managed their own vaccination coordination efforts — and some have proven more efficient at it than others. In South Carolina, 15.0% of the population are fully vaccinated, lower than the U.S. average.

Lower than average vaccination rates in South Carolina appear to be attributable in part to less efficient vaccination rollout. As of March 30, South Carolina has received about 2,827,100 vaccinations yet only administered about 75.1% of those doses.

As the virus mutates and new variants begin to spread, vaccinating the population as rapidly as possible is critical. In the last seven days alone, there were 7,617 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in South Carolina.

In total, there have been 547,018 confirmed cases of the virus in South Carolina as of March 30 — or 10,759 for every 100,000 people. For context, there have been 9,160 known infections for every 100,000 people nationwide.

All COVID-19 and vaccination data used in this story are current as of March 30, 2021.

These are all the counties in South Carolina where COVID-19 is slowing (and where it’s still getting worse).