COLUMBIA, S.C. – South Carolina's public health workers have been tasked with keeping the state safe for 143 years, ever since lawmakers created a health board in 1878 after a yellow fever outbreak killed 20,000 Americans.
Now, as the coronavirus pandemic surges, legislators are trying to break their agency apart. As in most states, South Carolina's public health agency was underfunded and overworked long before it had to sustain an exhausting defense against a virus humans had never seen before.
Criticism has mounted from all sides since then — over a slow rollout of testing, the agency's refusal to release detailed data on early cases, and for seeming to sideline its top epidemiologist.