Buttigieg, South Carolina mayor teaming up on COVID effort

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Former South Bend, Indiana, mayor and presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg has teamed up with the mayor of South Carolina's capital city to help municipalities stem the spread of the coronavirus.

Columbia, South Carolina, Mayor Steve Benjamin said Thursday that he and Buttigieg have been co-chairing the Pandemic Resilience Working Group for America’s Mayors. The group is organized by the COVID-19 Study Group at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University.

The guidelines are important for cities, which have different concerns and needs amid the outbreak, Benjamin said. According to the mayor, his effort with Buttigieg has focused on providing accessible guidance to both policymakers and the public on how to target and suppress the spread of COVID-19, including a color-coded map to categorize an area's risk level based on the number of new daily cases.

“The roadmap that we’ve been able to lay out with the leadership of these amazing researchers, public health and policy can stop the spread of the virus, save lives and our economy,” Benjamin said. “I’m also excited to work with Pete Buttigieg again. As America was able to see over the course of last year, he’s one of the brightest minds in our country.”

He added that other mayors’ insights on what works — and what doesn't work — in their cities helped determine variant ways to stamp out the virus.

Benjamin is among other South Carolina mayors who have implemented regulations intended to stem the spread of coronavirus more stringent than at the state level, including a curfew intended to keep residents at home and a requirement that people wear facial coverings in public spaces. South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, who has stressed the need to wear a mask in public, has said a statewide mandate is...