Winthrop Interim President George Hynd spoke on the current and future status of COVID-19 preventative measures for the university at a COVID-19 focused virtual panel, outlining an intention for a more optimistic and traditional Fall 2021 semester.
“We have about 5,500 students here on campus taking class in person, in a hybrid setting or remote,” Hynd said. “Having said all of that, we do require masks, social distancing, and hygiene since we’ve returned to campus. That bodes well moving forward into the future as more of our faculty and staff are vaccinated, and we’re hopeful that we can very quickly move to the point where we can have vaccines available for everybody.”
“I think we’re going to be looking at a fall semester that is looking more like what you expected when you came to campus as a freshman or sophomore, where we would be able to congregate more. We might not have to wear masks; that, I think, is still to be determined. The fact of the matter is that things are starting to look much brighter than they did in the fall.”
Hynd reflected on some of the lessons that the Winthrop administration has learned over the course of the past year dealing with the pandemic, citing the newfound effectiveness of requiring negative tests for returning students introduced in the Spring semester.
“One of the lessons we’ve learned was that we should be requiring proof of a negative test for students to check in and take in-person classes and move into our residence halls. We instituted that requirement this semester and, lo and behold, we found that there were about 150 students that said they felt fine, but they came back and tested positive. We did not let those students into the residence halls, and in many ways I think we cut off the potential for a great deal of spread across campus,” Hynd said.
The pandemic prioritized panel platformed a host of other York County leaders who spoke on the mitigation efforts and current status of COVID-19 in their respective fields, including SCDHEC board member Rick Lee and Rock Hill mayor John Gettys. Lee provided an in-depth rundown on the state of vaccine distribution and preventive measures for slowing the spread of COVID-19 in the state.
“We’ve conducted, if you can believe these numbers, 5.5 million tests for the virus,” Lee said. “You’ve probably seen the clinic over beside the Colosseum; we used to get nearly a thousand people a day through that clinic. …Currently, the positivity rate for tests for the virus have fallen from over 20% on any given day to about 8.5%. We’re optimistic that this drop will continue, though I’m not sure everyone understands exactly why the rate has fallen.”
“Presently in South Carolina, our vaccination program has sites in every county delivering vaccines to the public. We have over 487 official providers accepted by DHEC, including drug stores, hospitals, clinics, and more. Today we received almost a million doses of vaccine, and presently of that nearly 1 million, we’re in the high 70% of the vaccines that have gone into the arms of South Carolina residents. …I’m confident, barring a variant that somehow neutralizes the effectiveness of the vaccine, that a year from now we’ll be walking around without these facemasks on,” Lee said.
Mayor Gettys praised the collaborative efforts of Rock Hill residents and businesses, as well as the efforts of SCDHEC, in remaining socially distant and aiding each other during the pandemic, and said he looks forward to eventually seeing the city return to normalcy.
“It really is a wonderful thing to see, after someone has gone through the clinic and gotten their shot, the relief and the joy and the hope they have as they’re walking out the door. We’ve come a long way, but we’ve got a lot more work to do.”
Photo courtesy of Winthrop University
