South Carolina’s governor has announced he will not extend the emergency declaration first issued on March 13, 2020.
Gov. Henry McMaster held a Monday briefing at the state’s emergency operations center and said a state of emergency is no longer necessary.
He said South Carolina took the best approach to stop the spread of COVID-19.
[adrotate banner=”22″]
“While some other states took the approach of everything needs to be shut down, we took a different approach,” McMaster said. “Our approach was we don’t want to shut down anything unless we know it is an activity, a place, the kind of work that lends itself to the spread of the virus.”
Gov. McMaster was joined by Dr. Edward Simmer, director of the Department of Health and Environmental Control.
Both men said this is not time to relax, that COVID-19 is still a danger, particularly to unvaccinated individuals.
Dr. Simmer said there is still more to do.
“There’s still lots of folks that need to get vaccinated who haven’t been. We have over 900 vaccine sites open across the state. We have ample supply of very safe vaccines,” Dr. Simmer added.
MORE: Helping People Get COVID-19 Vaccinations
McMaster said state leaders will not coerce anyone to get vaccinated.
“It has been demonstrated that there’s some people who for various reasons do not want to take the vaccine, or at least they don’t want to do it now and we’re not going to force them to do that,” he said.
McMaster also said the state will not mandate vaccinations for students.
Gov. McMaster and Dr. Simmer agree on one thing: COVID-19 still exists and is still a threat.
Dana Lynn McIntyre is a Staff Reporter with The Augusta Press. You can reach her at dana@theaugustapress.com.
[adrotate banner=”37″]
