In the beginning, when everyone got sent home to ride out the coronavirus pandemic, Pickens County didn’t have much to worry about. Its COVID numbers were low, almost nonexistent, even as the sheer volume of cases and deaths ramped up everywhere else.
“The pandemic came to the United States in March [2020], but it didn’t come to Pickens County until a lot later,” says Kandy Kelley, coroner for Pickens County. “We really didn’t see any [deaths from COVID] until just a few months ago. And then, boom!”
Boom.