Teenager tests positive for Covid-19 in Lancaster County, dies as a result of complications of the virus, vaccination status not revealed

One Lancaster County teenager dies as a result of Covid-19 complications after he tested positive on the virus, health officials say.

According to the latest information, the 16-year-old boy died on August 12^th and the Lancaster County School District provided a statement about the student’s death.

“We are saddened to learn of the passing of a 16-year-old Andrew Jackson High student from COVID complications. Counselors are available to staff and will also be available to students on the first day of school, Monday, August 16 and through the week. The district continues to follow guidance from the CDC and SC DHEC. It is the district’s priority to keep students safe. Our thoughts and prayers are with the student’s family,” the statement read.

The teenager’s death comes in a time when the Covid-19 numbers are surging across the country and South Carolina. South Carolina recently hit its 10,000th COVID-related death and the current situation is not going to slow down anytime soon.

“To all those families across South Carolina, I want to say my deepest sympathy is with you. I know I also speak on behalf of the thousands of dedicated DHEC employees across our great state who are working non-stop to help prevent more lives from being lost,” read a statement released by South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control Director Dr. Edward Simmer regarding the grim milestone.

The identity of the boy was not released because of his age. Health officials didn’t provide information whether it was vaccinated or not.

The alarming fact currently is that more and more teenagers and kids are getting infected with the virus, something that was not the case in the previous waves. What is even worse, the number of hospitalizations in these groups is also rising.

“It’s hard to quantify exactly how many cases because this increase has happened so dramatically over the past two weeks, but what we can tell you is that the rate of increase over the past month looks very much like the January spike in terms of how quickly the caseload is going up,” Dr. Catherine Ohmstede, from Novant Health, earlier in the month.

In the latest Covid-19 report issues on Sunday by DHEC, South Carolina added more than 4,400 cases and this has been the highest daily number since January. DHEC reported 15 confirmed deaths and 5 probable deaths in the same report.

Since the start of the pandemic, South Carolina reported a total of 535,121 confirmed cases and 121,192 probable cases. The total number of probable and confirmed deaths is 10,039.

Health officials push for vaccination and urge everyone to get the shot as soon as possible. More details about vaccination site across the state and details about the Covid-19 number can be found here.