SC governor, state at odds over vaccination distribution

COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina health officials updated residents on its plan to distribute the COVID-19 vaccine Saturday.

This came after Gov. Henry McMaster criticized the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control and how it is distributing doses across the state.

In its latest update, DHEC said it has administered 41,500 doses of the 200,000 it has received.

The agency did not elaborate on the distribution of the vaccines as McMaster called for. McMaster wrote a letter the same day the head of DHEC gave a public briefing on the progress of the vaccine program.

He wanted the agency to account for where the vaccines are, and he wants the information on the state’s dashboard.

Right now, DHEC is in talks with National Guard Medics to help administer the vaccines. The state currently has enough ultra cold storage for two million doses.

South Carolina’s first phase of the vaccine rollout includes staff, people who live in nursing homes and frontline health care workers.

There have been a lot of complaints about the vaccine rollout.

Dr Helmut Albretch, an epidemiologist at the University of South Carolina, said that a lack of coordination with the federal government is a big problem.

“In order to do this for the population, we’ve got to do better, and we got to incentivize that whoever is doing this, is not losing money and can hire people,” Albretch said.

Albretch said at the current pace, it will take years to vaccinate everyone.

Cox Media Group