♪ [opening music for This Week in South Carolina] ♪ ♪ ♪ Welcome to a This Week in South Carolina Special Repor: A Year of COVID-19.

I'm Gavin Jackson We're a year into this pandemic and have seen the light at the end of the tunnel Thanks to increased understanding of the virus, better therapeutics and of course, the lifesaving vaccines right now more than 74 million Americans including nearly one million South Carolinians have so far participated in the biggest and fastest vaccine roll out in history before looking back, we look forward toward this brighter future as millions of Americans get safely vaccinated against this scourge.

We fight to return to life like we remembered it before this invisible enemy invaded our shores.

Every day we get closer to defeating this virus by getting vaccinated at grocery stores, pharmacies in remote areas and dense urban centers and even at Darlington Raceway where on one crisp March morning race cars were replaced with cars and trucks full of folks winding through the infield to get their shots days after Governor Henry McMaster and DHEC opened up vaccine phase 1B to more South Carolinians.

>> We do feel like this is a historical moment.

we have been very passionate and getting vaccines out.

We haven't done a drive-thru.

We identified that mobility might be an issue for some people and wanted to offer that and this venue allows us that so people don't have to get out of their cars, completely drive-thru.

It's a fun thing to come through the tunnel and get your vaccine here, right off of Pitt Road, right off of the finish line where we're standing now.

We want it to be a positive experience.

We definitely think getting the vaccines, it is absolutely a positive thing for our community and we're celebrating that today.

>> I think the demand now is there.

You saw the excitement.

We filled up within 24 hours after making the announcement that we could have 1B.

So, we're excited about that.

They understand the importance of this that we're changing lives, actually saving lives today.

There will be lives saved from this event today.

I mentioned this morning that we're almost a year I think we received our first patient on March the 16th of last year.

So it's been almost 365 days and it's been ups and downs.

We had several peaks in the hundreds.

The highest peak we had was in the 160s here at the beginning of the year.

It's put a toil on the medical staff, on the clinical staff, their dedication to all of our patients but particularly this COVID patient has been amazing.

It's something to be proud of.

We're excited about the vaccine.

It's just one of the tools that'll help us hopefully get back to some normalcy, but to be able to come out here today and do a mass vaccination, get 5,000 community members vaccinated will only help us and hopefully getting rid of these masks and getting back to normal life.

<Gavin> Normal life forever changed.

Shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic reached our state, the governor declared a state of emergency, last March and we remained in one ever since.

There were difficult days, sacrifices made and nearly 9,000 South Carolinians lost.

<Dr.

Linda Bell> I never expected that we would see this many deaths from a single illness in such a short period of time.

We're just a year - when we look at where we were a year ago I never would have dreamed we would be looking at what we're looking at now.

Well, those early days in March for us in public health we monitor disease transmission internationally all the time, looking for the sporadic outbreaks.

So we've been watching this the emergence of this novel virus in China since December and we were monitoring the travelers and so we knew that ultimately when things began to spread that ultimately it would occur here in the United States and it would occur in South Carolina.

We did not anticipate that the first cases would be in Camden, South Carolina.

We thought that it would be introduced from some international traveler who had come to one of our major airports or something like that.

So for the first cases to have occurred, well, the very first cases that occurred in South Carolina actually were related to international travel, not unexpected, but the first cases of community transmission in South Carolina where we couldn't identify any international travel, we didn't anticipate that would be in a small community of Camden and then we also didn't anticipate the impact it would have on that small community.

So, they subsequently had a large number of hospitalizations, a large number of deaths in that small community.

So, that was unexpected but it told us a story about what we needed to be vigilant about that it could spring up anywhere, affect anybody and spread in any way.

<Gavin> And it started to.

By March 17th, the spread had become clear.

Governor Henry McMaster took drastic action to limit the spread of the novel respiratory virus and while many were out enjoying St Patrick's Day festivities in places like Sullivan's Island and Five Points in Columbia, by the next morning, things had changed The governor's orders to close bars and in person dining, took effect.

<Governor McMaster> We know a lot of these things are going to cause problems for businesses but the enemy we face, is enemy of this virus is bigger than any sort of irritation or inconvenience that any of us can have.

So, we are asking people to stick together and understand that we're in a crisis and we need to take these measures.

<Gavin> Restaurants became take out and delivery only operations as dining rooms closed.

Some Waffle Houses went dark.

Grocery store shelves were barren.

Some stores rationed certain goods.

Toilet paper became nonexistent all while the economy lurched wildly as the unknown virus blitzed Main Street and Wall Street >> and obviously brutal.

I mean the markets rushed toward a place to say we have to start handicapping the probabilities of a recession in this country.

>> The equities down and down hard Thursday was the biggest drop since 87'.

Friday, the biggest pop since 08' and guess what we're back down with futures limit down going into cash output.

<Gavin> By the time the Dow Jones industrial average bottomed out on March 23rd it had shed 11 thousand points before rallying on news of massive federal stimulus programs.

Major manufacturers like Boeing and BMW, mothballed production lines.

The federal paycheck protection program helped some businesses hold on to employees while others laid off thousands, fueling record unemployment numbers and overwhelming the state's system some retail shops were deemed nonessential and closed in April along with attractions.

Unemployment skyrocketed.

>> Worst year in at least in my lifetime.

for tourism ever, but we had the shut down in mid-March, about 6-8 weeks things started slowly re-open.

We picked up some steam as we moved through Memorial Day, Cases rose again around July 4th.

and had to almost pull back.

One step forward, two steps back sort of thing and that's kind of been the pace with the rest of the year.

Came up a little bit in the Fall and then late as the Winter started cases rose again.

Normally, we're about a 24 billion dollar industry.

We lost somewhere between 6 and 7 billion, last year.

Don't have the final numbers yet.

Like I said, there was some successes like golf.

Short term rentals did fairly well during this time.

They offered more square footage, a kitchen, more privacy than hotels did.

Hotels lost about the 29%, 28% maybe 35% of revenue somewhere in that range.

Don't have the final numbers, yet, but somewhere in that range.

So, restaurants tough time probably the hardest hit in our industry.#* Then the attractions, of course a lot of things have been closed and there are still some things closed <Gavin> The restrictions eventually became too much for some and protests occurred at the State House in early April like they did in other parts of the country.

The governor re-opened retail stores in late April but attractions were still closed and other restrictions remained.

<woman> Everyone is essential whether you think it's essential or not.

Everyone needs to work.

Everyone needs to do the things that are important to them.

We got kicked off the playground but we're not getting kicked out of the liquor stores.

It doesn't make any sense.

<Governor McMaster> We're still in a serious situation but also South Carolina's business is business and to the extent that we can, we must let those businesses operate because people want to work.

They need to work.

The families need to work.

They need their jobs and we could do all that we can do to see that they can do that and continue with their lives as much as possible under these very serious situations.

<Gavin> Soon restrictions began easing, replaced by guidelines to follow, such as social distancing and masking even as we experienced our summer surge that strained the front lines.

The governor and business leaders formed Accelerate S.C. to craft recovery strategies and how to allocate the flow of billions of dollars in federal aid to the state.

>> There will be change when the governor and I were together today, we both knew that we're looking at a new normal.

We don't know exactly what it is and that's what this group has got to help us figure out.

<Dr.

Linda Bell> We did also have to recognize the economic impact of COVID and that's when I talk about there were ways to more safely re-open.

I mean there were certainly activities that were not essential where re-opening occurred and the recommended prevention behaviors were not in place.

So I saw an opportunity you could do both.

It wasn't a one or the other.

You could re-open and you could have the limited capacity and you could have the masks but to have done the re-opening without the masks, without the mask ordinances without the requirements for certain physical distancing without the limitation on gatherings where masks would be required.

I think that was perhaps the missed opportunity.

So, it wasn't that the re-openings themselves.

There are certain timing about that, but there are ways to have done re-openings more safely.

>> Our economy is continuing to recover both at the U.S. and the South Carolina levels So when we look locally here we're continuing to progress.

The unemployment rate now at 4.6% in South Carolina and it's that slow and steady recovery that we've been seeing all throughout the Fall and into the Winter.

But the recovery has also been very dichotomous meaning that if you look at all sectors in South Carolina except for leisure and hospitality basically the service sector, we're doing very well and we're almost fully recovered.

Employment levels now are within a percentage point of where they were this time last year but if we look at leisure and hospitality, if we look at that service sector, it's still down about 17%.

And in 2021 we're not going to see full recovery of leisure and hospitality until we get the vaccine distributed and so that's really what we're looking towards as we move ahead.

Recovery in South Carolina at this point really means recovery of leisure and hospitality because most other sectors have recovered and are doing well.

<Gavin> While the business world was jolted, the hunt for gloves, masks and gowns as well as testing supplies was ongoing.

Our limited allocation from the strategic national stockpile started being delivered in mid March, while officials looked high and low across the world to supplement dwindling supplies.

When asked if we are prepared Dr. Bell said this.

No, we didn't know what to expect.

We had many things in place to flip certain switches to activate, to respond, to prevent it from being worse than it was, but we weren't fully prepared ...at a number of levels, I mean, there had been plans in place in the past that were not, that were no longer in play that could have been activated as quickly as possible.

From your very first question about epidemiology, How do diseases spread?

Who do they affect?

What's the timing?

From that perspective, knowing what to expect, I think we were prepared for what to put in place to limit spread but in terms of having everything that was needed to do that - manufacturing.

Were enough masks even available when we recognized that they were needed and effective?

That they weren't yet in place?

Those are just some examples of maybe we weren't exactly prepared.

But we got there as quickly as we could.

<Gavin> The pandemic instantaneously changed everyone's lives.

We all made sacrifices and some took on challenges in the worst of it.

Those in the black community were disproportionately affected due to a multitude of health and socioeconomic factors and the South Carolina African American Heritage Commission captured dozens of their stories as part of their Black Carolinians Speak: Portrait of a Pandemic.

Alesia McFarlin is one of them, a nurse who came down with COVID-19 upon returning to South Carolina in March 2020 after working in California.

When she recovered Alesia headed to New York, where the initial surge still raged.

Her family was shocked.

>> Like, what you just got better, what are you thinking?

Yeah I was like, I can relate to them.

I know what they're going through I know how they feel I know how it is to feel scared having the virus and just not knowing if I'm going to make it or not.

It doesn't discriminate.

It doesn't matter - we've had somebody - if you're 16, If you're 30, if you're 40, 80, it doesn't matter.

you're still fighting for your life, regardless, because you don't know - most people end up with what they call a ground glass appearance on their lungs and it causes a very bad pneumonia.

It's very complex and hard to treat and then it just starts affecting and deteriorating their entire body, So, I just I was compassionate I just want them to know that just their family and friends aren't there but somebody that can relate to them is there to care for them.

I just wanted to help, really.

<Gavin> Like so many aspects of life, education changed overnight.

Parents that could work from home, became part time teachers.

Others dropped out of the workforce to care for families as classes went all online in mid-March and remained that way for the rest of the 2020 school year.

Some schools remained that way into the Fall, while others chose online, in-person hybrid models or normal instruction, State Superintendent of Education Molly Spearman recalls when everything changed.

>> I remember one superintendent calling, "We had a parent show up with a mask on at school."

[laughing] And thinking back to that is almost hilarious to see where we come from but also we also knew there was not a single case in the school, but yet the public outcry was, "Why haven't you already closed schools?".

That Sunday that the governor announced the closing of schools, we had two conference calls that day with superintendents to really tell them what was happening.

We weren't sure if the closure was going to be for Monday or that Friday.

So, immediately they found out about four o'clock on a Sunday afternoon that school was going to be closed but yet they needed to feed all the children in their district So it was a miraculous effort.

They showed up.

They did what they needed to do and we fed over the summer over 21 million meals to students buses and not only fed them but delivered the meals to the students.

So it was quite an operation.

General Patton, I'm told would have been very proud.

The education community showed that they could turn on a dime.

The other piece of it was the virtual learning and maybe we can talk a about that, because that certainly put a focus on how ill-prepared some areas were versus some who children had the devices in their hands.

>> I guess just early on it was a train wreck, because obviously none of the teachers were prepared to teach entirely online.

A lot of them didn't even have like online presence type deal.

I think one of my classes had a like Google classroom page but I don't think anybody else did.

So, it was a scramble at the beginning to one, make up for lost time and two, even get the infrastructure in place to do any of that online classes.

I personally, I definitely struggle.

I always like, I'm able to get myself back on track and it helped I do think it helps being in person.

The biggest part of that is just the routine.

Before, when we had no in person, it was like, I'd wake up at noon and I log on and get done.

I would sit there for an hour and be, "Do I really want to do this?

Maybe I'll do it later but at least having to be here at 9 o'clock in the morning helps a lot.

Before I would everything was through email with one teacher I have Google classroom with another there are some third party website with a different teacher.

Now, it's all on the canvas like the older school district had a canvas everything's on there.

We take all our tests on this Google Classroom browser type thing.

Obviously all of our online lectures are through ZOOM or are recorded.

So it's definitely a lot more structured than it was at the end of last year.

<Molly Spearman> Hundreds of families are now online with because of optic fiber that has been put in the ground over the last few months.

So, devices have been purchased teachers have been trained.

Just a whole new virtual system that was not there for much of the state is now there and in place.

The other thing is I think it forced us at the Department of Education to really put in priority standards.

We have heard from teachers for a long time that our standards are so broad.

There's so much that you have to teach.

This made us, it forced us over the Summer to bring together groups of teachers with some experts and we now have priority standards, which our teachers are raving about.

We have been asking for years to buy a learning management system.

It's very expensive and we never could get the funding to do it.

That's the way that connects every teacher in South Carolina to good quality standards.

We can communicate with them.

We were able to purchase that now with federal funding, a repository for great lessons.

So we have come so far with the resources that we're able to give our teachers in South Carolina that will be ongoing forever.

So there's a lot of lemonade.

And I think just the strength of character while we're all very tired.

I know our character has been strengthened and that we have and are making it through a very difficult time and we will be - we are a better system because of it and that makes me really proud.

>> The pandemic also delayed life from simple moments to big days alike.

The mental health of many began to deteriorate as social interactions were curbed.

Alcohol sales jumped, as did concerns of increased drug use and signs of physical abuse that were now hidden from view.

Health care delays also had tragic consequences.

As part of the Portraits of a Pandemic Project Marilyn Hemingway said that for her father who was dealing with cancer last year those delays and shutdowns meant death.

>> My father died from cancer but COVID killed him.

And the reason I say that is I think the shutdown from the pandemic he lost his social outlet.

He'd already - he was 89 so a lot of his friends had already died but he still have friends who would check on him visit with him.

He lost that.

I can literally see under the pandemic his world start to shrink.

It went from him having senior center, veterans greeting people just on the street to literally being in the house especially during quarantine for two weeks.

We couldn't see anyone.

We just could talk on the phone or by the computer.

ZOOM, became a big thing.

I can see just the emotional and mental toll on him.

<man> The sadness at not being able to surround people whom you love when they lose someone that has been deeply painful I don't know that people have really begun to process those or have really known how to process those moments or what it's going to look like when we're all back together again and we begin to take stock of all the things that we let go of.

<Gavin> Last year, Bishop Andrew Waldo moved the services for the 60 churches in the Episcopal diocese of upper South Carolina from in person to virtual.

Lively high holy days like Easter became quiet, surreal moments in empty sanctuaries.

He holds fast to seeing parishioners in person soon, something that has been difficult during a time when faith plays such an important role for many.

<Bishop Andrew Waldo> I have long said that life all of life is a journey of figuring out how to let go of something or other.

Sometimes it's letting go of a hoax.

Sometimes just letting go of an opportunity to do something we want to do but couldn't do, but sometimes it's really those profound letting goes that have to do with letting go of people whom we care about, or relationships we care about and of course death is the ultimate letting go not just someone else's who's close to us' death but our own.

And I think we've all had to face our mortality in ways that maybe have helped us to see the world a little bit differently with perhaps more gratitude for the things that we have before us that matter so much.

<Dr.

Linda Bell> Ummm....

So many things kept me grounded the very first was my family my immediate family, my husband, my children were so understanding of what I was confronted with - just work hours what I was required to do the support from my immediate family was tremendous.

My mother who is now deceased, That immediate support was what kept me grounded but in addition to that, that's my immediate family, my public health family.

I've worked at DHEC for 27 years and people in my public health family showed up in a way that I don't think many people appreciated that they also invested everything that they had that people we're a year into this now, I know so many people who worked almost 365 days including, I mean every week day every weekend day to create the data that was expected to do the outbreak response that was expected, to do the investigations, to just be there to respond to the needs in the community and so many people gave so much and we were working virtually though for much of this time but we remain connected virtually through our calls and that support for one another in that work space when we were really confronted - There's just many, many demands from an incident command structure and many expectations and that kept me grounded too that people were just not giving up and many people weren't even required to do much of what they were doing.

They just did it.

They just saw what needed to be done outside of their normal duties they just showed up and said, "how can I help?".

So across DHEC, but then more broadly witnessing what was going on in the population I have to say that I actually got a great deal of community support, people lifting me up, people just reaching out, saying that, "I'm praying for you."

That kept me grounded.

So, just being a part of that community, people who were grateful, people who were struggling, people who were doing their best to help that when I never felt that... it was too hard to do when I witnessed what other people are going through and recognizing those sacrifices.

That kept me grounded.

>> That's something we can all relate to, after a year unlike any other.

So, now if you haven't already do your part, like I have and get any of the safe and effective vaccines the moment they become available to you, so we can finally end this pandemic, together.

For South Carolina ETV, I'm Gavin Jackson.

Be well, South Carolina.

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