The health department deployed mobile health clinics to the area to provide MMR shots, but few people in the community took advantage. “I can tell you that a relatively small number of doses was administered at each of the mobile health unit clinics that we offered,” Bell said.

No other vaccination clinics are planned, according to the department’s website.

People who are not vaccinated are almost always infected after they’re exposed to the virus; measles is the most contagious known virus in the world and can hang in the air for hours.

The current spread in South Carolina is occurring at several schools and a church in Spartanburg County, Bell said, with 254 people under a three-week quarantine. It takes 21 days for symptoms to occur after an exposure.

But with the ongoing spread in schools, some students who remain unvaccinated are now in a second 21-day quarantine since the beginning of the school year, Bell said. She did not have an exact number of kids in their second quarantine, but said it’s not a “significant proportion.”

While the quarantine includes weekends and holidays, 42 days is a significant amount of time away from the classroom.

The spread of measles is not isolated to South Carolina. On Wednesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported a total of 1,912 measles cases so far in 2025.

The majority of cases have occurred in unvaccinated children and teenagers.

Outbreaks in the Western U.S. are ongoing: 176 in Arizona and 115 in Utah, according to state health officials. One of the Utah cases occurred at a child care facility with a high school in Salt Lake County.

The infected person was at the facility all day, every day last week (Dec. 1 through Dec. 5), the Utah Department of Health & Human Services said.

And health officials in Montezuma County, Colorado, located on the border of Utah and Arizona, reported an unvaccinated child had been diagnosed with measles. The child had no known connection to any other cases and hadn’t traveled outside of the state.

“The lack of a clear source of infection suggests that unidentified measles cases may be occurring in or traveling” through the area, investigators said.

Symptoms of measles can include:

• Headache, fever that may spike to over 104 degrees
• Cough, runny nose
• Red, watery eyes
• Tiny white spots inside the mouth
• A rash that begins on the scalp and travels down to the neck, trunk, arms and legs.

Approximately 11% to 12% of measles cases require hospitalization. Three people, including two young girls, have died in the U.S. this year.

MMR vaccines, given in two doses around a child’s first and fifth birthdays, provide 97% protection against the virus.

The quarantine period for measles is 21 days from the exposure, which is the maximum incubation period before the tell-tale rash appears. Measles is highly infectious, with up to 90 percent of unvaccinated or otherwise vulnerable people contracting the virus upon exposure. People infected with measles are infectious from four days before the rash appears to four days after its onset.

The outbreak is occurring in the northern region of South Carolina, with many cases identified in Spartanburg County, which contains Inman, as well as Greenville County. Both counties have low vaccination rates. For the 2024–2025 school year, only 90 percent of Spartanburg students were vaccinated, while Greenville’s vaccination rate was 92.4 percent. Those numbers are well below the 95 percent target needed to halt community transmission.

The two counties’ low vaccination rates are coupled with high rates of religious exemptions. Spartanburg has the state’s highest rate, with 8.2 percent of students exempt from the school vaccination requirement based on religious beliefs. Neighboring Greenville has a religious vaccination exemption rate of 5.3 percent.

Of the 111 outbreak cases, 105 were unvaccinated, three were partially vaccinated, two had an unknown status, and one case was fully vaccinated.

On a national scale, vaccination rates have declined overall amid misinformation spread by anti-vaccine activists, including current Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. As such, measles cases are at a 33-year high, with nearly 2,000 cases this year and 46 outbreaks.

This post was updated to correct the year the US eliminated measles. 

Coming into the offseason Shane Beamer had to focus on finding South Carolina’s next offensive coordinator, but will Beamer also have to find a replacement for his defensive coordinator? On3 Sport’s Pete Nakos reported on Monday that defensive coordinator Clayton White is on the short list for the same job at another SEC program. Could White actually be headed elsewhere in 2026?

White has been with the program in the defensive coordinator role since being hired by Beamer in 2021. Since accepting the posiiton, he has been a two-time Broyles Award nominee for the nation’s top assistant coach (2021 and 2024), including being a semi-finalist in 2024. Over his four seasons in Columbia, White’s defenses have forced 88 turnovers, the highest mark in the SEC during that stretch.

In 2024, the Gamecocks ranked among the nation’s top-25 in nearly every defensive statistical category including scoring defense (12th), rush defense (18th), pass efficiency defense (21st), total defense (16th), turnovers gained (16th), sacks (6th), forced fumbles (1st), fumbles recovered (19th), and opponents fourth down pct. (1st). While the numbers didn’t end up the same this season, White’s defense was still one of the better units in the conference, especially against the pass.

Ripple Effect in the SEC

While the biggest news of the day for fans of the Gamecocks and the football program itself was the hiring of now former TCU offensive coordinator Kendal Briles to fill the same role in Columbia, the surprising news that is now affecting the team was Tennessee deciding to move on from Tim Banks. Like White, Banks has been in charge of the Volunteers defense since 2021. He leaves after Tennessee closed the regular season last month ranked 92nd nationally in scoring defense (28.8 points per game) and 88th in yards allowed (395.5 per game).

This move could be viewed as somewhat of a surprise after Banks led one of the better units in the country in 2024. A defense that was arguably the catalyst for the Volunteers playoff push. But a down year created an open position that could make ripples across the conference.

White isn’t the only candidate in the SEC involved as Georgia’s co-defensive coordinator, and former Gamecocks DC, Travaris Robertson is also a potential target for Josh Heupel. In a move that will likely be announced sooner rather than later, the Gamecocks may not be waiting long to see if another major opening is coming this winter.

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