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AUGUST 5–11, 2021
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COVERING BEAUFORT COUNTY
COVID surges in Beaufort
2020 TOKYO OLYMPICS
Beaufort Memorial, City encouraging citizens to get vaccinated
ment,” Team Beaufort coach Ray Jones said. “She was competing against herself and she won. Couldn’t ask for anything else.” In the Snatch, Fattouh completed lifts of 88 and 93 kg before missing at 97kg. In the Clean & Jerk, she hit all three lifts at 112, 118 and 124 kg.
By Mike McCombs As COVID numbers continue to climb again across the state of South Carolina and the nation as a whole, Beaufort is right there in the middle of the surge. The statewide numbers reported Tuesday by the S.C. DHEC, reflecting Sunday’s data, indicate there were 1,651 positive new cases and 414 probable new cases statewide. The positive test rate was a staggering 19.7 percent, a number similar to those at the pandemic’s prior peak in January 2021. As of Sunday, Beaufort County’s seven-day average for new MORE cases was 88.7, COVERAGE a 91 percent in• S.C. DHEC recommends crease over a masks in week prior, when indoor school that number was settings. Page A6. just 46.3. Anoth• Masks are er week prior to back at MCAS that, the number Beaufort, was a paltry 11.6. Parris Island. Page A7. According to • Beaufort a heat map pubMemorial lished by S.C. reimposes visitor DHEC, as well as restrictions. a report by the Page A8. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Beaufort County is now officially a COVID “hotspot.” As of Monday afternoon, Beaufort Memorial Hospital had 23 COVID patients, including six in the ICU, all on ventilators. None of those hospitalized patients have been vaccinated. The Delta variant of the COVID-19 virus, in combination with an unmasked, nearly fully open economy and a reluctance of a large segment of the population to get vaccinated have formed a perfect storm. “A virus' job is to survive. Adapt, mutate, replicate, in order to survive,” Beaufort Memorial Hospital President and CEO Russell Baxley said Monday. “That is what his
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SEE COVID PAGE A7
Beaufort’s C.J. Cummings finished ninth in the 73-kilogram weight class at the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo. Photo by Stephen Galvan/International Weightlifting Federation.
Cummings places 9th
Weightlifter will begin training for World Championships By Mike McCombs It was a disappointing performance last week for Beaufort’s C.J. Cummings in his Olympic debut, but he’s taking in stride. The 21 year old finished ninth in the 73-kilogram weight class
Wednesday, July 28 at the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo, making just two of six lifts for an overall total of 325 kg. “It was the first time for me being on this stage, and I learned from the experience,”
Cummings said Monday from Hawaii, where he is taking a break with his family. “I put a lot a lot of pressure on myself, but I realize it’s really just like any other competition.” Despite his struggles, Cum-
mings’ coach, Ray Jones, made sure everyone knew he was proud of his star pupil. “I AM ‘ALWAYS’ PROUD OF MY BOY,” Jones texted
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Yemassee’s Fattouh has career day
First female Olympic weightlifter for Lebanon breaks personal best
By Mike McCombs For Mahassen Hala Fattouh’s Team Beaufort teammate C.J. Cummings, a ninth-place finish in his Olympic debut, though
nothing to be ashamed of, was likely a disappointment. Conversely, for Fattouh, her Mahassen ninth-place finHala Fattouh ish Sunday in Tokyo was quite simply the best performance of her career. And on the biggest
stage. Fattouh, 31, completed five of six lifts in Group B of the Women’s 76-kilogram weight class to finish with a personal-record 217 kg total while becoming the first woman in history to compete in the Olympics in weightlifting for Lebanon. “I’m so proud of her. She’s trained her whole life for this mo-
County Planning Commission closing in on their part of Comp Plan
M
BEAUFORT embers of the Beaufort County Planning Commission demonstrated Monday night they’ve been doing their homework – reading and pondering the 300-page “Envision Beaufort County,” aka the Comp Plan. The Commissioners took less than an hour of their regular monthly meeting to review the latest document designed to guide development through 2040. Drafted by the county planning staff and consultants DesignWorkShop, the document which is required by state law, has been in the proverbial works since March 2020 and been presented to at-least four in-person hearings plus a community session
LOLITA HUCKABY
last month held by Councilmembers Paul Sommerville and York Glover. The latest draft addresses the major concerns raised in public comments – affordable housing, heirs property, protection of historic cemeteries, sand mining, public water supplies and equity of public resources, a point stressed by the
Lowcountry Equitable Land Trust and the Coastal Conservation League. The document will be reviewed one more time by the Commission before it goes to County Council for public hearing and three votes. And in the city of Beaufort, public meetings on its document are scheduled Aug. 10 and 12. So as a concerned citizen interested in the future of the county, you still have time to do that summer reading. Another example of officials with tied hands BEAUFORT – With the recent
SEE PLAN PAGE A5
Workers on Monday try to stabilize the exterior wall of Deals on the Scott Street Extension in Downtown Beaufort. The wall buckled late last week forcing city officials to close the street in case the wall fell. Photo by Mike McCombs.
NEWS
SPORTS
INSIDE
Beaufort’s Elias promoted to 9th degree black belt.
High school football teams prep for season openers.
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