The county has seen an increase in its number of active cases of COVID-19.
John Douglas of CareSouth Carolina gave an update about COVID-19 during the Marlboro County School District Community Zoom meeting on Tuesday.
“Things aren’t good in Marlboro County but they’re better than they are in surrounding counties,” he said at the beginning of the update.
As of Monday, he said, the active number of cases of COVID was 294, which was the highest since the pandemic began. It was up from 206 a week ago.
Out of the eight Pee Dee counties, Marlboro County is the fifth highest in terms of active cases.
Douglas said the county has no zip codes in the top 15 in terms of total cases or rate of cases in the Pee Dee.
Marlboro County’s rate of positive results from testing is 31.3 percent. This means almost a third of those who are getting tested are getting positive results.
“It (the rate) is the lowest in the region, which speaks to how bad it is in the rest of the region,” Douglas said. “It’s not good but it is not as bad as in other places.”
The World Health Organization recommends this percentage be at 10 percent.
Douglas added Marlboro county continues to have the highest rate of testing completed in the region. The testing rate is 10 percent higher than the state as a whole.
Marlboro also has the lowest percentage of cases resulting in death and resulting in hospitalization in the region. 
“You get tested,” he said. “You know you have it earlier. You get treatment. In the other counties where there is less testing, we see higher rates of hospitalization and unfortunately death.”
Harvard Global Health Institute ranked the county as 18 in the state and 515 in the nation out of 3,142 counties.
Douglas cautioned people not to just look at the total number of cases in the county but concentrate on the active cases.
For instance, Darlington County is much worse than MC but if you look at total cases since this began, Marlboro is worse than Darlington.
“It doesn’t matter what happened last April or May, we are concerned about January (2021). I caution you to look at the active cases and not the total,” Douglas said.

   County update
As of press time on Wednesday, there have been 117 new cases of COVID-19 in Marlboro County.
There have been 32 total deaths in the county.
South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control reported, there were 311 active cases. 
The active cases can be found in the following zip codes: 29512 (Bennettsville), 189; 29516 (Blenheim), 13; 29525 (Clio), 32; 29570 (McColl), 37; 29594 (Tatum), 0; 29596 (Wallace), 22; and 18 unknown.
The county has 2,216 overall cases.
As of Wednesday, 65 students have had COVID-19 since the beginning of the school year. Currently, there are 17 active cases and six students in quarantine.
There have been 78 staff members who have tested positive for COVID-19. Currently, there are 19 active cases and 35 staff members in quarantine.
The state has 332,900 who have tested positive for the coronavirus and 5,402 have died.
Nationally, there were 22.9 million confirmed cases and 380,882 deaths.

    Testing
Several COVID-19 testing opportunities are available throughout Marlboro County. They include:
– COVID testing from 9 a.m.-3:30 p.m.  Monday-Friday at the Marlboro County Health Department, 711 S. Parsonage Street in Bennettsville. People are encouraged to sign up at covidtest.dhec.sc.gov. Once completed, go to the health department at the appointed time, pull up to the traffic cones, call the number and someone will come out to do the nose swab. Results can be emailed in 3-5 days or by mail in 7.
— 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Jan. 12 at the Clio Dollar General with CareSouth Mobile COVID-19 testing. The screenings are free. Mouth swabs are used on the Mobile and results are usually back between 3-4 business days.
— 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Jan. 15  at the Marlboro County campus of Northeastern Technical College with CareSouth Mobile COVID-19 testing. The screenings are free. Mouth swabs are used on the Mobile and results are usually back between 3-4 business days.
— 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Jan. 19 at the McColl IGA with CareSouth Mobile COVID-19 testing. The screenings are free. Mouth swabs are used on the Mobile and results are usually back between 3-4 business days.
— 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Jan. 20 at the CareSouth Carolina office in Bennettsville with CareSouth Mobile COVID-19 testing. The screenings are free. Mouth swabs are used on the Mobile and results are usually back between 3-4 business days.
— 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Jan. 21  at the Marlboro County campus of Northeastern Technical College with CareSouth Mobile COVID-19 testing. The screenings are free. Mouth swabs are used on the Mobile and results are usually back between 3-4 business days.
— 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Jan. 22 at the Marian Wright Edelman Public Library with CareSouth Mobile COVID-19 testing. The screenings are free. Mouth swabs are used on the Mobile and results are usually back between 3-4 business days.
— 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Jan. 25 at the McColl IGA with CareSouth Mobile COVID-19 testing. The screenings are free. Mouth swabs are used on the Mobile and results are usually back between 3-4 business days.
— 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Jan. 26 at the Clio Dollar General with CareSouth Mobile COVID-19 testing. The screenings are free. Mouth swabs are used on the Mobile and results are usually back between 3-4 business days.
— 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Jan. 27 at the Marian Wright Edelman Public Library with CareSouth Mobile COVID-19 testing. The screenings are free. Mouth swabs are used on the Mobile and results are usually back between 3-4 business days.
— 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Jan. 28 at the CareSouth Carolina office in Bennettsville with CareSouth Mobile COVID-19 testing. The screenings are free. Mouth swabs are used on the Mobile and results are usually back between 3-4 business days.
— 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Jan. 29 at the CareSouth Carolina office in McColl with CareSouth Mobile COVID-19 testing. The screenings are free. Mouth swabs are used on the Mobile and results are usually back between 3-4 business days.