State health officials reported 48 confirmed and 4 probable deaths today.

Of those 52 deaths, only 9 of them died yesterday, 1 of them in Lexington County.

The other 42 died over several weeks dating back to July 10.

The delayed death reports included 3 other Lexington County deaths dating from July 25 to July 27.

The Department of Health and Environmental Control has no way to control late case and death reporting.

They depend on coroners and health care officials to report the numbers.

DHEC also announced 1,666 confirmed cases and 5 probable cases n their Wednesday reporr.

These included 113 covid-19 cases in Lexington County and 154 in Richland County.

DHEC did not report the dates when these cases were detected.

This may leave the false impression that all of these cases were detected yesterday.

The Chronicle has suggested to DHEC officials that the public would like to know when new cases were detected.

Otherwise, it sounds like these cases happened yesterday, leading to a distorted picture of what is happening.

We at the Chronicle recognize the need to remind our readers to take this disease seriously.

However, incomplete details can fuel public fear and hysteria as is going on in other states..

DHEC said this brings the number of confirmed cases to 85,423, probable cases to 423, confirmed deaths to 1,551, and 64 probable deaths.

As of yesterday, 734,149 tests have been conducted in the state so far this year.

8,360 individual test results were reported to DHEC yesterday statewide not including antibody tests with 19.9% or 1,664 positive results for covid-19 infection.

That means 80.1% or 5,598 tested negative or being virus free.

As DHEC continue to refine hospital bed data, with the TeleTracking system, they found:

• ICU beds: 1,451 total; 299 available; 1,152 in use (79.39% use rate)
• COVID-19 patients hospitalized: 1,596; 404 in ICU; 242 ventilated