Maverick County Reports Seventh Death Casualty from COVID-19, 43 New Confirmed Positive Cases, 35 Hospitalized Patients, Including One in Labor and Delivery Department
By: Ricardo E. Calderon, Eagle Pass Business Journal, Inc., Copyright 2020
The silent and invisible deadly novel coronavirus assault on Maverick County continues to surge unabated as Maverick County Judge David R. Saucedo announced on Wednesday, July 8, 2020, that another person had passed away from COVID-19 at a San Antonio hospital, the seventh overall, and 43 new confirmed positive COVID-19 cases were reported by the Texas Department of State Health Services, including one person who tested positive in the Labor and Delivery Department at Fort Duncan Regional Medical Center with a second person awaiting their test results.
Saucedo stated that a total of 7,387 people in Maverick County have had a COVID-19 test administered with 720 positive results, 5,982 negative results, 685 waiting for test results, 434 active cases, 279 recovered, 35 hospitalized, and the positivity rate increased to 9.7 percent.
Saucedo noted that of the 35 people hospitalized, eight of them are in the Intensive Care Unit on ventilators, 18 are positive on the Medical Floor and five are waiting for their test results, two positives are in the Emergency Room, and one positive person was in the Labor and Delivery Department with a second person waiting for her test results. This is the first time that a person in the Labor and Delivery Department has tested positive for COVID-19, said Saucedo.
Saucedo reported that State Representative Poncho Nevarez’s intervention with the State of Texas Emergency Management Office succeeded in obtaining additional ventilators be supplied to Maverick County for use at the Fort Duncan Regional Medical Center.
Eagle Pass Mayor Luis E. Sifuentes stated that the Eagle Pass and Maverick County Emergency Operations Center staff and he were going to meet with Fort Duncan Regional Medical Center Chief Executive Officer Eladio Montalvo to discuss the status of the hospital’s COVID-19 patients capacity in light of the rising numbers of hospitalized people in Maverick County.
Maverick County like the State of Texas and the United States is in the midst of a surge of positive COVID-19 cases. Texas reported a single day high record of 98 deaths on July 8, 2020, bringing the total to 2,813 overall, a total of 9,979 new positive COVID-19 cases, bringing the total to 220,564 overall, and a total of 9,610 hospitalized people in Texas.
Many Texas hospitals in Houston, San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, El Paso, Laredo, and the Rio Grande Valley report having reached 100 percent capacity of Intensive Care Unit beds, raising questions of overwhelming their health care services. Bexar County is opening a field hospital at the Freeman Coliseum in San Antonio, Texas to treat the overflow of positive COVID-19 patients. Many other cities are in the process of opening field hospitals too. Texas is the new epic center of the COVID-19 pandemic together with Arizona and Florida.
Nationally, the United States is booming with rapidly increasing numbers of positive COVID-19 cases with over 59,400 cases reported on Wednesday, July 8, 2020, bringing the total number to over 3,000,000 cases, and over 132,000 total deaths related to COVID-19, according to the New York Times.
The lack of leadership and a national plan for combating the deadly COVID-19 virus by President Donald J. Trump has caused a chaotic patchwork of measures by the 50 individual states that is failing miserably and spread of the lethal coronavirus, bringing unnecessary illnesses and deaths to Americans.
