- BIG STORY: S.C. vaccination rates fall, spurring warnings
- MORE NEWS: Shutdown drives S.C. food assistance surge
- LOWCOUNTRY, Ariail: Metaphor for the season
- BRACK: S.C. judge involved in case of national importance
- MYSTERY PHOTO: Broken building
- FEEDBACK: Send us your thoughts
S.C. vaccination rates fall, spurring warnings after measles outbreak
By Jack O’Toole, Capitol bureau | As a measles outbreak continues to spread in Spartanburg County despite quarantines, public health experts are warning South Carolina parents that children in every region of the state are at risk for diseases once thought eradicated. The reason: Falling vaccination rates.
Records collected annually by public and private schools show the state’s vaccination rate fell from 95.5% in 2020 to 93.5% in 2025 — a full point-and-a-half below the 95% “herd immunity” rate associated with prevention of outbreaks. Over the same period, the number of students with religious exemptions from state childhood vaccine requirements has grown from 12,545 to 27,730, or about 3.3% of the statewide school population.
Even more concerning, doctors say, are individual pockets where local vaccination rates have fallen even further, with counties like Horry, Edgefield, Richland and Charleston now a full 3 to 6 percentage points below the needed 95%.
S.C. Department of Public Health (DPH) officials tell Statehouse Report they’re working at community levels in “high hesitancy” areas to overcome obstacles including access, transportation and misinformation about the safety of vaccines.
Their message to state residents is simple.
“Vaccines save lives,” DPH spokesperson Casey White said in a Nov. 13 email, noting that vaccines have long been a safe and effective way to protect against deadly childhood diseases. “These diseases historically killed or disabled many people, especially young children, prior to the development of vaccines against them.”
Asked last month about the Upstate measles outbreak, now up to 43 confirmed recent cases, Gov. Henry McMaster stopped short of explicitly recommending vaccination, stressing education efforts instead.
“You give people proper information, full information, and let them make their own decisions,” McMaster told reporters. “And they will make the right one.”
So far, 31 Upstate residents, including six children, have decided to receive free measles vaccinations at mobile clinics launched by DPH on Oct. 16. Speaking to reporters Nov. 12, state epidemiologist Dr. Linda Bell acknowledged that state officials had hoped for “a more robust uptake,” but characterized the numbers as slow progress.
S.C. Senate Minority Leader Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg, a longtime vaccine proponent on the Senate Medical Affairs Committee, said state leaders needed to do more to encourage vaccinations — particularly as childhood disease outbreaks and vaccine misinformation appear to rise in tandem across the Palmetto State.
“There’s some bad stuff out there that we just take for granted is nearly eliminated because people were getting vaccinated,” Hutto said in a Nov. 14 interview. “This whole vaccination scare is just terrible. People need to know that vaccines are safe and they work.”
Fighting hesitancy, misinformation locally
Since 2020, Charleston County has seen its vaccination rate fall from 94.6% to 92.0% — a drop that Dr. Robert Oliverio, chief medical officer of Roper St. Francis Healthcare, called “concerning” in a Nov. 13 interview.
“The fact that a single person with measles can infect 20 more people means that you have to vaccinate about 95% of the community to keep it from spreading,” Oliverio said, noting that the disease can lead to severe outcomes, including brain damage, in some patients.
“That’s why vaccination rates are so important,” he added.
But to get those numbers up, he said, public health officials have to overcome what he called the “three C’s of vaccine hesitancy” — complacency, confidence and convenience. And it’s the first two that have become the most serious obstacles since the controversy over vaccines during the Covid pandemic, he said.
“We’ve seen complacency regarding these diseases go up and confidence in the public health system go down,” he said, adding that the volume of false and misleading information about vaccines on the internet is “not helpful.”
“Everybody knows that the sun’s gonna rise at dawn and set at sunset — it’s a shared reality,” he said. “There’s overwhelming evidence that these vaccines work and are safe. This should be a shared reality, too.”
But with bad information so prevalent, Oliverio said, it’s hard for laypeople to make sense of the situation — a problem that Dr. Annie Andrews, a longtime Lowcountry pediatrician now running for the U.S. Senate as a Democrat, said she sees in her own practice.
“I have a lot of sympathy for parents who are trying to figure out who to listen to for accurate information,” Andrews said. “And I worry about the long term impact this will have on the health of South Carolina’s children as vaccination rates continue to go down.”
That’s a problem the Charleston County School District decided to confront directly in 2021 when it became the only district in the state, and one of only a handful across the country, with federal authorization to administer vaccines with parental consent in its schools.
The vaccines are available to students with Medicaid coverage, high-deductible private plans or no insurance at all.
“We have a very receptive community,” said Celeste Dailey, a registered nurse who serves as the district’s immunization coordinator. “So when parents sign a consent form, we’re able to give their children all the vaccines that are needed.”
And the impact, she said, is large and growing.
“Last year, we vaccinated 1,904 students,” she said. “And this year, we’ve already vaccinated 865 students. The number of delinquencies is really going down.”
It’s local efforts like these, with trusted professionals talking directly to parents, that hold the key to turning around the state’s falling vaccination rates, experts say.
“I’ve been giving flu shots recently,” Roper’s Oliverio said. “And sometimes it’s a conversation — but when you show them the evidence, nine times out of ten, patients see the benefits of the vaccine.”
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As holidays near, shutdown drives S.C. food assistance surge
Staff reports | With the holiday season fast approaching, state food banks say more people than ever are seeking food assistance due to the record-setting government shutdown and cuts to government benefits.
“We are seeing many folks during this government shutdown who are seeking food assistance for the first time,” said Jill Hirsekorn of the Lowcountry Food Bank in a story originally published Thursday by the Charleston City Paper, a sister publication. “We are definitely seeing a significant rise in the number of neighbors who visit our Charleston and Myrtle Beach facilities to obtain an emergency bag of food to take home.”
Over the last year, the need for food assistance has risen by 30%, according to food bank CEO Nick Osborne. In 2024, the food bank supported more than 200,000 residents, distributing more than 46 million pounds of food, the equivalent of 33 million meals. In October, however, walk-ins at the food pantry tripled, and web page traffic more than doubled.
A big part of that was the loss of the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), according to food bank clients.
“The shutdown has really impacted everybody in some kind of way or another — working or non-working,” said a woman who asked for anonymity. “It’s not just about one person. It’s people who are working poor or living paycheck to paycheck.”
She added, “Many of the people who are receiving benefits are disabled. If they pay their rent, they don’t have enough money left over for food. That’s who these benefits are for.”
With the federal shutdown now resolved, state officials say SNAP recipients who did not receive food assistance on Nov. 1 will see the aid deposited on Nov. 14.
State and local nonprofits are stepping in as well. The Coastal Community Foundation activated its Care Fund on Nov. 4 to help meet the increased demand. As of Nov. 12, it had raised more than $410,000, including about $71,000 from individual community donors.
“We are proud of the way the community has stepped up to support our region through The Care Fund,” Darrin Goss Sr., the foundation’s president and CEO, said.. “The fund is essential to counter the hardships caused by a loss of federal funding and a significantly increased need.”
On Nov. 12, the Duke Endowment announced a $1 million gift to Feeding the Carolinas, the association of food banks in North and South Carolina, to help meet rising demand following disruptions to federal assistance. The money will be divided among the 10 associated food banks based on the levels of food insecurity in the areas they serve. – Skyler Baldwin
In other recent news
S.C. high court ruling will cut legislators’ pay. S.C. lawmakers gave themselves an improper $1,500 monthly raise, the state Supreme Court ruled unanimously Wednesday. The “in-district compensation” that they approved earlier this year qualifies as salary, the court ruled.
S.C. lawmakers discuss regulating THC-infused products. South Carolina lawmakers are looking to send a bill to the governor’s desk next year that would ban the sale or distribution of low-dose hemp-derived consumable products, like THC-infused drinks, to anyone under 21.
- Congress cracks down on hemp products in shutdown deal
- McMaster hosts summit to address addiction in S.C.
Johnson to file bill for state funding to cover food benefits. S.C. Rep. Jermaine Johnson, a Democrat running for governor, says he’ll file a bill to automatically provide temporary State funding to cover food benefits in the event of a future shutdown or pause.
State, federal efforts could further restrict abortions. A look at various ways abortions could be further limited in South Carolina.
Remediation complete on Lowcountry’s USS Yorktown. Gov. Henry McMaster on Wednesday said 1.6 million gallons of pollutants on the USS Yorktown – a ticking environmental time bomb — have been safely removed.
S.C. launches Smart Start program to help veterans transition to civilian life. The South Carolina Smart Start program provides a virtual guide that connects transitioning service members with resources organized by county, including employment opportunities, education programs, healthcare services and community support.
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Metaphor for the season
Award-winning cartoonist Robert Ariail has a special knack for poking a little fun in just the right way. This week, he takes a poke at football at the University of South Carolina.
- Love this week’s cartoon or hate it? Did he go too far, or not far enough? Send your thoughts to feedback@statehousereport.com.
S.C. judge involved in case of national importance
By Andy Brack | In a week of explosive news that saw the end of the nation’s longest government shutdown and the release of 20,000 pages of documents that may take down a president, you might have missed a really interesting story about a South Carolina federal judge.
It seems that Senior U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie of Columbia is doing special duty in a Washington case of great import to the nation. She’s looking into a critical issue involving the prosecution of two of President Donald Trump’s foes: Former FBI Director James B. Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
At issue is whether Trump loyalist Lindsay Halligan, the novice interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia appointed after her predecessor refused to indict the two, should be a federal prosecutor at all. Lawyers for Comey and James say her appointment violated federal laws related to interim appointments, which the Justice Department denies.
So Currie, first appointed to the federal bench by President Bill Clinton in 1994 after serving as a chief deputy state attorney general and federal prosecutor, has been brought in to referee the issue before the case really gets going. And the whole thing is important, legal analysts say, because it calls into question whether a president can install loyalists to prosecute political foes through interim appointments to bypass congressional oversight.
What’s particularly interesting in the cases against the former director and current New York attorney general is how quickly Halligan, who had no prosecutorial experience, got indictments, according to The Washington Post: “In both cases, Halligan pursued the charges over objections from career prosecutors in her office who had concluded there was insufficient evidence to support them. She presented the cases to the grand jury herself.”
And this is where everything gets extra delicious if you know anything about Cam Currie’s career: She knows exactly how grand juries work. Why? Because she ran the South Carolina State Grand Jury for five years until she became a federal judge.
As a lawyer and a judge with 31 years of experience on the bench, she knows how the system is supposed to work. When you realize the core value of her legal career has been a lifelong commitment to the rule of law, you may better understand her stalwart support and belief in due process, legal standards, accountability and making sure that no one – no government, institution or individual – is above the law. So you can see where we may be headed.
Through the years, Currie’s record has shown a commitment to fairness, due process and the rule of law. In 2009, she ruled the state of South Carolina couldn’t have a cross and the phrase “I believe” on license plates because it was a First Amendment violation. In 2023, she ruled that the conservative Freedom Caucus had to be treated like other legislative caucuses when it came to rules on organizing, fundraising and elections. Most recently, she oversaw a 2025 case involving R.J. May, a former Lexington County legislator who pleaded guilty to five counts of distributing child sexual abuse material. She’ll sentence him in January.
“Currie’s record reflects a consistent emphasis on procedural rigor and adherence to established legal standards,” according to a Newsweek profile.
It’s anybody’s guess where the cases against Comey and James will end up. But skepticism by Currie about Halligan’s appointment came through clearly at one point Thursday when she seemed to catch Justice Department lawyers in hypocrisy. In Halligan’s case, they’ve been arguing her appointment as prosecutor was proper. But in a past case involving special prosecutor Jack Smith, appointed to investigate Trump’s mishandling of classified documents, they took the opposite position in trying to disqualify him.
A ruling is expected by Thanksgiving. If Halligan is disqualified or the cases are thrown out for some legal reason, one message may become clear – the Justice Department should be off limits to presidents and they shouldn’t use it to seek revenge.
Andy Brack is editor and publisher of Statehouse Report and the Charleston City Paper. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com.
Broken building
Here’s a broken building somewhere in South Carolina Where and what is it? Send your best guess – plus hometown and name – to: feedback@statehousereport.com.
Last week’s mystery, “Big clock” shows the clock on Tillman Hall at Clemson University.
Congratulations to the several people who identified it. We’ll post names on Saturday.
- SHARE: If you have a Mystery Photo to share, please send it to us – and make sure you tell us what it is!
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Please send us your thoughts about politics and policy in South Carolina, but make sure to leave phone numbers and hometowns to help us verify them for publication. We publish non-defamatory comments, but unless you provide your contact information – name and hometown, plus a phone number used only by us for verification – we can’t publish your views.
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Statehouse Report, founded in 2001 as a weekly legislative forecast that informs readers about what is going to happen in South Carolina politics and policy, is provided by email to you at no charge every Friday.
- Editor and publisher: Andy Brack, 843.670.3996
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