Post and Courier22%
West Nile virus outbreak declared in Pee Dee, most likely in Myrtle Beach 2%
By Tom Corwin19%
8/6/2026, 1:00:00 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 4 faulty reasoning types, including Optimism Bias, Indoctrination, and Overconfidence Bias, with Availability Heuristic as the most egregious example at 5.3% saturation with 19 hits. Analysis detected 40 faulty-reasoning hits from 358 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 5.6% and a BS Rank of 2% (28,049 of 28,460 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 98.60% of the article peer group.
South Carolina public health officials declared an outbreak of mosquito-borne West Nile virus after two human cases were diagnosed in the Pee Dee region.
North Carolina announced its first human case of the season the same day.
The S.C.
Department of Public Health said Aug. 5 there were two human cases diagnosed in the same geographic area of the Pee Dee in the same time frame, which shows the virus is circulating and fits the state’s criteria for declaring an outbreak.
West Nile is not transmitted person-to-person, so two different infected mosquitoes bit those patients.
To be declared an outbreak, the cases have to be diagnosed within 45 days of each other and within two to three miles, said Dr.
Martha Buchanan, director of the Bureau of Communicable Disease Prevention and Control for public health.
South Carolina has mosquito-borne disease cases every year so the announcements should not come as a surprise, said Dr.
Helmut Albrecht, an infectious disease specialist with Prisma Health and the University of South Carolina.
It's the time of year we would see them, he said.
While it is important, it is not a reason to go overboard, Albrecht said.
Don't ignore it.
Don't panic, he said.
We've got this.
The recent rains should be a reminder for people to empty standing water in their yards, Buchanan said.
Mosquitoes can lay eggs in the water that hatch in seven days, so emptying the water at least weekly helps interrupt the cycle and a new crop of the flying pests, she said.
Using repellent with DEET can also deter bites that would spread disease, and wearing long sleeves and pants outside is always a good idea to ward off attacks.
The Palmetto State typically sees five to 20 cases of West Nile a year and that is usually a confluence of factors, Buchanan said.
This is a season where we see increased mosquito activity and increased human outside activity, she said.
So that's a combination that is going to lend itself to cases of mosquito-borne illnesses that are endemic to South Carolina.
Speakers
3speakers74%attributed speech94writer words
Selected voice
58%flagged-word coverageHelmut Albrecht
69 attributed words26% of attributed speech0% writer coverage
Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.
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Analysis
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