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John Murphy
This morning there was large rally / protest at Prisma’s Greenville Memorial Hospital. There are concerns that Prisma is going to mandate Covid vaccines for its employees. Prisma is the largest healthcare provider in the state of South Carolina serving as many as 25% of the state. If Prisma mandates the vaccine then it will be easier for many other health networks to do the same. It also will likely encourage many corporations to also require a vaccine mandate for employment.
It was a peaceful event. I was there from about 7:30 – 9am. The event continued on until 9:30am or so. I’m not a professional at sizing up crowd sizes. I did try to take my own guesstimates but it was definitely more than 500 people but probably less than 1,000 from my vantage point. The organizers of the event were SC4Freedom and Laurens County Republican Party SC. Here’s the Medical Freedom Rally Prisma Health Greenville Facebook Event Page.
There were all kinds of concerned citizens who showed up with homemade signs. This was not a crowd of professional protesters nor did it appear that the group had big sponsors in the background who could crank out tons of signs. Young and old…moms and dads, kids, grandkids…all showed up to make a statement that we will not stand for vaccine mandates and that we need to have medical freedom of choice.
The only people I saw masked were the media personnel who were there filming and broadcasting stories about the rally 🙂
Well I know this is 3+ hours away from Greenville, but I can’t help but publish some information about the goings on in South Carolina in general especially when it comes to the corona virus situation.
South Carolina has supposedly become one of the real hot spots in the country with Covid-19 / Delta Variant cases popping up all over. If you follow social media, you’ll see the screams from people pleading for folks to wear masks. And while I have seen a noticeable uptick in mask wearing the past few days, it seems most are content to take the risk and go barefaced.
So I thought it was interesting when I checked my e-mail today with news that Hilton Head Island has declared another emergency due to the Covid outbreak. Now mind you, no one can really point to a giant increase in deaths…just positive cases – whatever that is worth…not much. The aspect I found most interesting is that they are NOT hitting people with a mask mandate. They are only recommending people wear them. They aren’t even going as far as saying that masks need to be worn in city buildings or indoors anywhere. Not the town council could decide to do a mask mandate like they did for much of 2020. Let’s hope not.
I know that many of my readers are people from out of town trying to figure out where to move to as they escape the oppressive governments running nearly all the blue states in the U.S. So, if that’s you, and if you haven’t been to Hilton Head Island, it’s a fabulous place to vacation. The beaches are phenomenal and there are plenty of golf course to take in. Be sure to do the short 25 minute drive out to Bluffton, SC. Make sure you visit the old downtown as well as drive along many of the gorgeous roads with overhanging oak trees covered in Spanish moss.
Lastly, a unique thing about the beach on Hilton Head Island is that you can experience both the sunrise as well as the sunset given the position of the island.
This message is out to my fellow REALTORS in South Carolina. I have found many of the SC REALTORS webinars to be very helpful. Here’s the link to the SC REALTORS Webinar Schedule. You have to log in with your SC REALTORS credentials to see the schedule.
Here’s the SC REALTORS Youtube Channel to be able to watch previously recorded webinars.
Below is the Legislative Recap from the 2021 session by Lindsay Jackson, SCR’s Chief Advocacy Officer.
Well it appears the City of Greenville has once again decided to embrace the mask 🙂 Yesterday it was announced that effective today, there is a mask mandate for all City of Greenville offices and buildings. This is not a citywide mask mandate and appears to be much more limited than the new mask mandate for Columbia, SC. Here is the official statement from the City of Greenville regarding their new mask mandate for August 2021.
If I’m not mistaken, I believe the City of Greenville is limited now in what it can require in terms of mask mandates across the city so they have gone with the limited edition – city buildings only. I do expect we’ll see a pick up in some mask wearing particularly downtown. We might even see some businesses decide to once again require masks to enter their stores, buildings, and offices. However, there has been a lot of push back against the masks. It’s hard to imagine that this latest round of government overreach makes it very far with the populace. Lots of people are getting tired of government telling them what they have to do. The Greenville area is generally considered a conservative bastion and they aren’t too fond of the masks or the vaccines.
If you want to follow along with how well South Carolina is doing with Covid, you’ll have no shortage of Facebook posts to read through at the SC DHEC Facebook Page. According to SC DHEC, Covid-19 – or the Delta Variant – is raging out of control across the state. That said, it appears that the number of Covid-19 Delta positives has dropped by about 50% in the past few days. I believe we were around 3,200-3,500 per day last week. Today’s report shows 2,220.
eXp World Holdings, parent company of fast growing eXp Realty, just reported a record quarter this past week. (Disclosure, I am an agent with eXp Realty and shareholder in eXp World Holdings – EXPI on the Nasdaq).
Second Quarter 2021 Financial Highlights as Compared to the Same Year-ago Quarter:
- Revenue increased 183% to a record $1 billion.
- Gross profit increased 133% to $79.9 million.
- Net income increased 350% to $37.0 million, which included $20.6 million income tax provision benefit. Earnings per diluted share increased 300% to $0.24.
- Adjusted EBITDA (a non-GAAP financial measure) increased 98% to $27.0 million.
- Operating cash flow increased 210% to $88.5 million.
- As of June 30, 2021, cash and cash equivalents totaled $107.4 million, compared to $63.6 million as of June 30, 2020. The Company repurchased approximately $54.9 million of common stock during the second quarter of 2021.
- The Company declared a cash dividend for the third quarter of 2021 of $0.04 per share on the company’s common stock. The dividend is expected to be paid on Aug. 30, 2021 to shareholders of record on Aug. 16, 2021.
Here’s the link to the full press release on eXp World Holding’s Second Quarter Results. Here’s the latest stock price for EXPI.
I joined this company over 4 years ago when we had fewer than 3,700 agents. Now we have more than 60,000 across the U.S. and now in many countries throughout the world. It’s an innovative real estate brokerage model that has eliminated costs by being virtual and eXp compensates agents with stock as well as allowing agents to participate in the gross revenues generated by the company with its Revenue Share program. I’m not aware of any other brokerage that allows agents to participate both in the revenue and equity of the company.
If you’re an agent or thinking about becoming an agent and you’d like to learn more, please feel free to reach out to me directly or fill out an application here – Join eXp Realty.