COLUMBIA, S.C. — Richland County is limiting access to their judicial center. This comes after an order from Chief Justice Donald Beatty:
“It was determined that someone in the Richland County Courthouse has had indirect contact with the coronavirus. Therefore, out of an abundance of caution, I have ordered court operations at the Richland County Courthouse to be streamlined. I believe this decision to be in the best interest of litigants, attorneys, employees, and the public. The order shall remain in effect until further notice.”
Richland County Administrator Leonardo Brown gave more details in a press conference on Thursday afternoon.
"All jury trials are postponed, but non-jury trials and other hearings may continue to be held," says Brown. "Only attorney's on behalf of litigants may appear unless the chief judge directs other parties to be present."
Richland County courthouse is not closed, but it has made plans to clean the facility while access is restricted.
At Fort Jackson, they are also restricting access and announced during a Facebook live town hall that they will had their last physical graduation on Thursday and will not be having any other physical graduations until further notice.
"We will live stream all graduations until we restart physical graduations," says Brig. Gen. Milford H. Beagle Jr. "We can't delay and can't shift the graduation, because once they graduate, they immediately ship the following day to their Advanced Individual Training locations."
The live stream of graduations will be on the Fort Jackson Facebook page. Basic Training Family Day has also been canceled until at least April 30th. However, basic training will continue.
Fort Jackson stressed that there are no positive cases of COVID-19 on base as of March 12.
In an update from the department Brig. Gen. Beagle tweeted that a stop movement order had been issued for Fort Jackson military, Department of Defense civilian personnel and their families from March 16 - May 11.
The order applies to all permanent change of station (PCS) and temporary duty (TDY) moves.
Click here for a link to the full Town Hall live stream. Fort Jackson plans to host another Facebook Live Town Hall every Thursday.