<b>By Mike McCombs</b>

It was a record-breaking day for South Carolina on Thursday, and not in a good way.

The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) announced the most COVID-19 associated deaths reported for a single day – 69 confirmed and three probable. The previous high was 38 confirmed on July 8.

There have been 1,053 COVID-19 deaths in South Carolina. Three elderly adult deaths were reported for Beaufort County bringing that total to 27.

DHEC was quick to point out that many of the deaths occurred days ago, that 63 people really didn’t die on one day. But Thursday’s total was compiled no differently than any other day.

Just by the nature of the difficulty of attributing a death to COVID-19, deaths will always be a statistic that lags behind.

DHEC, however, did publish a new graph which shows each day when the deaths that were attributed to COVID-19 actually happened – <a href="https://www.scdhec.gov/infectious-diseases/viruses/coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19/sc-testing-data-projections-covid-19#deathbydate" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Deaths in South Carolina by Date of Death graph</a>.

There were 1,842 new confirmed cases announced on Thursday – 108 in Beaufort County. There have been 63,880 total confirmed cases in South Carolina, 2,280 in Beaufort County.

Of the 8,643 individual test results reported to DHEC on Thursday, the <a href="https://www.scdhec.gov/infectious-diseases/viruses/coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19/sc-testing-data-projections-covid-19#percentpositive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">percent positive was 21.3 percent.</a>

As of Thursday morning, 2,946 inpatient hospital beds are available and 7,935 are in use, which is a 72.93 percent statewide hospital bed utilization rate. There are 1,578 beds occupied by patients who have either tested positive or are under investigation for COVID-19, and 214 are on ventilators.