FOCUS, Palm: Governor should create new state health testing office

By Fred Palm, contributing editor for the common good  | In the bizarro world of 2020, South Carolina legislators of both parties are not only demanding that a state agency ask for more money, but telling its leaders outright they will get whatever they need.

It should be obvious by now — even to us dullards casually watching the paint dry with the absence of our no-show legislature — that for seven long months, our governor, Henry McMaster, does not want a big effective testing program to contain COVID-19. The S.C. McMaster program is no testing and no masking. 

McMaster lacks the modicum of a plan to contain the COVID-19 infections, illnesses and deaths. There is no victory; just enduring the pain and dislocations. Nada. Nope. Just Southern plantation slow talk without substance. 

McMaster likes coasting and bumping along, as if this is a flood. McMaster dons his black emergency-in-charge shirt standing ready to send in helpful stuff as the waters recede. Governor: This is a pandemic. The storm emergency model does not work in this virus emergency.

McMaster

Sadly, a fulsome COVID-19 testing program to contain the virus might subject him to a Twitter storm from his political patron. He would rather lay low. Off radar. No cojones. Seemingly, McMaster has greater loyalty genuflecting to his patron than he does the people of South Carolina. That is clear.

New office needed  

Our legislators need to create the Office of COVID-19 Testing (OC-19T) within the state Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC). Establish a separate testing oversight board with a single unequivocal mission: Contain COVID-19. 

Establish a leadership board with a majority made up of epidemiologists, infection disease physicians, biomedical statisticians and representatives of the people of South Carolina. (Those serving our state to address COVID-19 cannot also serve on the failed DHEC board.) Duties of the new office:

• OC-19T is to prepare and implement statewide, regional and community COVID-19 testing of a magnitude to reliably estimate the state and regional prevalence of COVID-19.
• Provide to the people of our state rapid COVID-19 diagnostic testing with the test results produced within 48 hours.
• Protect school children/students and staff with COVID-19 testing support.
• Establish diagnostic testing to identify and serve South Carolinians without symptoms infected with COVID-19 who are capable of transmitting the disease. 

Initially direct 33.3 percent of federal CARES funding should be the budget of the OC-19T to implement statewide testing to contain COVID-19

Contain COVID-19!

• OC-19T should also hire and train personnel to implement statewide contract tracing. All testing results are to be provided to DHEC for review, comment and the required statistical reporting. 
• The OC-19T budget for testing and tracing is to be submitted directly to the legislature for its review and approval. 
• Funds not encumbered for testing are released to the executive for planning and programs approved by the legislature. 
• Duplicative functions between DHEC and OC-19T are transferred to OC-19T. 
• OC-19T will sunset six months after the last recorded case of COVID-19.
• During the infection period, the OC-19T may order successive masking periods of 30 days to reduce COVID-19 spread in localities with greater than 10  percent positivity.

Legislators:  Like the questions and issues surrounding race in our state, the COVID-19 manifestations are not going away no matter how hard they look away and claim it is not seen. Given the hapless McMaster COVID-19 response these past seven months, the legislature must:

• Grab the leadership horns;
• Assert hegemony over the COVID-19 response program by providing the needed scope of policy responses; and 
• Install the needed leadership at DHEC to contain the pandemic impacting S.C.’s economy and people. 

Address, confront and get on with what needs doing. Get our economy and people safely back into action. This has gone on far too long.

Governor:  Get off your duff and serve the people of South Carolina.

NEWS BRIEFS: More coronavirus testing needs to be done, officials say

Staff reports  |  State officials say coronavirus testing has declined in the last month while, at the same time, new cases have fallen.  But that doesn’t necessarily mean the state is recovering quickly from COVID-19, particularly since hospitalizations due to the virus are on the rise since Aug. 24.

One state official said the decline in new cases might be due to fewer tests being done.

“It’s possible that less cases have been identified due a recent decrease in overall testing,” according to statements by Dr. Brannon Traxler, a S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) physician.  “We need to have more people getting tested regularly in order to stop this disease,” Traxler said, describing testing as “absolutely essential.”

“It helps us identify people who are infected with the virus,” she said. “And testing is important for identifying individuals who have the virus but are asymptomatic and are spreading the virus unknowingly.”  Read the full story in sister publication, Statehouse Report.

In other recent news:

That BIG Book Sale rescheduled.  The Charleston Friends of the Library’s annual biggest used book sale has been rescheduled from October until May 27 to May 30 due to the coronavirus.  In the interim will be four pop-up book sales: Sept. 12 at Baxter Patrick James Island Library; Oct. 10 at Wando Mount Pleasant Library; Nov. 14 at Bees Ferry West Ashley Library; and Dec. 12 at Mount Pleasant Regional Library. More info.

Senate convenes this week. The Senate will convene as a full body noon Sept. 2 in its chamber at the Statehouse in Columbia. Senate President Harvey Peeler said the body would discuss making voting safe for the Nov. 3 general election. The House will convene on Sept. 15.

Budget stuff remains unclear, but still some surplus. The revenue forecasters for state spending met Aug. 24 to close the books on the fiscal year of 2019-2020, which ended June 30, but had revenues delayed as tax deadlines were extended amid the pandemic. The year ended with about $467 million above the $9.4 billion originally predicted for revenues, according to Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Executive Director Frank Rainwater. (For context, in January, Rainwater’s team was predicting a $507 million surplus, on top of unexpectedly recurring surplus revenues from the previous year of $350 million.) However in an interview Thursday, the state’s Comptroller General Richard Eckstrom said the year closed at a $775 million budget surplus. That includes money that agencies didn’t spend and that’s why it doesn’t match with the figures reported Monday, Rainwater said. 

Now comes the tricky part for the Board of Economic Advisors: Predicting what revenues the state should expect for the 2020-2021 fiscal year. It will convene again 1 p.m. Aug. 31 to discuss  predictions. Many expect advisors to be conservative in their estimates. 

Statehouse Report’s Lindsay Street contributed to this section. Have a comment?  Send to:  editor@charlestoncurrents.com