This Myrtle Beach-area hospital system is COVID free for the first time in two years

For the first time since 2020, Tidelands Health is COVID free.

Administrators at the Grand Strand health system celebrated the milestone Monday - almost two years to the day after its first patient was hospitalized with the disease.

“Zero COVID is something we never thought would come,” Jo-anne Klein, a Tidelands Health infectious disease specialist, said.

On March 16, 2020, Tidelands Health admitted its first COVID patiennt. The person was treated at its Waccamaw Community Hospital emergency department and went on to recover at home.

Since then, Tidelands Health providers have administered more than 109,000 COVID vaccines.

Tidelands’ announcement comes as South Carolina’s healthcare system overall is seeing fewer COVID patients.

Nearly 33 percent fewer people were hospitalized with COVID for the week ending March 13 than a week earlier.

The total number of patients on ventilators dropped by 27 percent, according to S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control data.

This story was originally published March 21, 2022 at 12:00 AM.