Sumter funeral home holds first-ever drive-thru visitation

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In an ever-evolving world adapting to impacts caused by the new coronavirus pandemic, drive-thrus are no longer reserved for restaurants and businesses. They're being implemented now by funeral homes.

Bullock Funeral Home held a drive-thru visitation Tuesday afternoon after live-streaming the service online. The effort was a workaround for health and safety restrictions put into place by South Carolina's governor prohibiting gatherings of three or more non-household members and to ensure compliance with federally recommended social distancing guidelines of keeping people more than six feet apart from each other - the distance it is thought to keep safe from droplets flying from the mouth or nose of a person infected with COVID-19, the highly contagious respiratory illness that has decimated economies, jobs and the way we interact daily.

Funeral homes - and businesses everywhere - have tried a range of changes. Photos have been shared across news outlets of funeral services allowing only 10 people or immediate family members in, of chairs being placed six feet apart from each other.

Harvin Bullock, founder, owner, manager and president of his namesake business, said he's finding a balance between keeping everyone safe and allowing friends and family to pay respects and say goodbye to loved ones.

He said he's trying to limit graveside services to immediate family members, and those services are being streamed on their website. Each person's services can be found directly on his or her obituary.

Tuesday's drive-thru visitation, for a 77-year-old woman who did not die from the virus, was a first.

"We've never had to do anything like this before," Bullock said.

The Sumter native, who served as coroner from 2009-2016, bought the funeral home in 1995. He said the drive-thru visitation allowed some of the woman's elderly friends who have health challenges to pay their respects without fearing they'd come in close contact with someone with the virus.

6 die, including 4 from Sumter, after attending Kershaw County funeral

Gathering for life-cycle ceremonies, especially those involving elderly guests, has proven deadly in Sumter.

Six people who attended the same funeral in early March have now died from the coronavirus.

According to Sumter County Coroner Robbie Baker, four of them were from Sumter. They died March 22, March 27, April 1 and April 3. The other two COVID-19 victims were a married couple from Kershaw County.

"It just shows the importance of social distancing," Baker said.

He said the funeral took place in southern Kershaw County before state mandates were issued prohibiting large groups, and eventually three or more people at a time, from gathering.

They were all elderly and had underlying health conditions, he said, which public health officials have been warning, and data on the dead have been proving, puts you at higher risk not of getting infected but of developing complications from the infection.

Baker said a total of 10 Sumterites have died from the respiratory illness, more than the six confirmed by the state's public health agency. Nine of them were black, Baker said, while only one was white, mirroring statewide and national data that show, where racial demographics have been released, African-Americans are more likely to die from COVID-19 because they are more likely to be living with diagnoses such as diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and asthma.

Seven of the Sumter victims were female, Baker said, including a 49-year-old woman who died recently.

He said he wants stores, jobs and the economy to open again like anyone else but that he is nervous. He said he hopes people adhere to the social distancing guidelines ordered by the governor. Even when we're being careful, he said, we may not know someone around us is infected and contagious, a likely situation at the funeral.

According to The Associated Press, new research suggests that far more people have had the coronavirus and never showed symptoms. That's a good sign when it comes to the virus' lethality, but it's bad news when it means it's impossible to know who around you may be contagious.

In the last week, according to AP, reports of silent infections have come from a homeless shelter in Boston, a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, pregnant women at a New York hospital, several European countries and California.

The head of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says 25% of infected people might not experience any symptoms. The vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. John Hyten, thinks it may be as high as 60% to 70% among military personnel.

None of these numbers can be fully trusted because they're based on flawed and inadequate testing, said Dr. Michael Mina of Harvard's School of Public Health to AP.

Collectively, though, they suggest "we have just been off the mark by huge, huge numbers" for estimating total infections, he said.

Worldwide, more than 2.3 million infections and more than 160,000 deaths have been confirmed. The virus has caused nearly unprecedented economic and social harm since its existence was reported in early January.

"I don't think it will ever go back to totally the way it was before," Sumter's Baker said.

Baker describes himself as a hugger, a coroner who likes to comfort grieving families, something he can't do right now.

"It's tough because you're trying to be compassionate, but you're walking into people's houses, and it's impersonal to be with a family when you have masks and gloves and gowns on," he said.

His office recently tested two people after responding to calls they had died at their homes and were exhibiting symptoms signaling COVID-19, which include fever, cough and shortness of breath. They tested the bodies at their office and sent the samples to the state public health lab.

They came back negative, Baker said. Their ability to test the deceased helps more than official numbers. Now, their families, Baker and his deputy coroners and the EMS personnel who responded to the homes can all rest easier knowing those two people they came in contact with did not have the virus.

As of DHEC's daily update Tuesday, 4,608 South Carolinians have tested positive for the virus, 135 of whom have died.

That includes eight in Clarendon County after one resident was among the 11 deaths announced Tuesday. Sumter has had six people die and 199 test positive, and Lee has had five of its 41 residents who have tested positive die.