Publication of DHEC data on COVID-19 testing and quarantine stating that it is “full of misinformation”

CHAPIN, SC (WIS): Just over a week into the school year, more than 1,100 Lexington Richland 5 students are ill, isolated, or in quarantine.

In a viral Facebook post, a woman reported that he was the father of a Chapin elementary school student at LR5 who spoke out against quarantine and COVID-19 testing, calling them “nonsense. ”.

The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control responded to those claims Thursday and said that this post on social media, like many they have seen in recent months, is “full of misinformation.”

Among the claims made in the post are that COVID tests are unreliable and that the virus should be treated like the flu.

In the last week alone, the percentage of students affected by Exposure to covid specifically at Chapin Elementary it has gone from 2.5% to over 20%.

And since early May, the weekly reported COVID cases in Lexington County have gone from 24 cases to more than 2,000 cases last week.

DHEC officials argue that without testing, contact tracking and quarantine, those numbers could continue to rise.

The woman who wrote the viral post also said the quarantines instituted in school districts across the state are “stupid.” In response, DHEC said quarantine and isolation are effective disease prevention protocols that have been established for centuries to limit the spread of the disease.

There are a number of key differences between COVID and influenza, according to DHEC. They include the fact that COVID spreads more easily and can cause more serious illnesses, such as lung injuries.

Dr. Brannon Traxler, director of Public Health at DHEC, said the main problem with combining COVID with the flu is that covid can be spread before anyone has symptoms and some people with COVID have no symptoms.

The woman also said parents should only keep their children at home from school if they show flu symptoms or feel bad. Traxler said this strategy could present problems.

“We would be missing a number of contagious people who would only ask people who had symptoms and who had them at the time to stay home,” he said. “This is part of the importance of testing, not only to identify if your symptoms are due to COVID-19, but to identify presymptomatic or asymptomatic people, especially those at high risk because they have been exposed as close contacts. “.

Without tests, the woman also said the tests cannot detect the Delta variant. This is another statement that Traxler has verified.

“If it tests positive because of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, it causes COVID-19,” he said. “And so far the mutations in the variants are not the ones that have changed the ability of the test to detect the virus.”

On your website, DHEC continues to urge parents to vaccinate their children, from the age of 12, and advocates other preventative measures to prevent the spread of COVID, including masks, hand washing, and physical distancing in large groups.

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