Maverick County Reports Two Fatalities and 15 New Confirmed Positive COVID-19 Cases, Totaling Five Fatalities and 455 Cases
By: Ricardo E. Calderon, Eagle Pass Business Journal, Inc, Copyright 2020
On the day that the United States reported its highest single-day record of confirmed positive COVID-19 cases with over 50,000 on Wednesday, July 1, 2020, Maverick County also set a record of two fatalities due to COVID-19 and added 15 new positive COVID-19 cases, bringing the total number of fatalities to five and 455 positive COVID-19 cases as of July 1st.
Eagle Pass Mayor Luis E. Sifuentes announced the tragic news at the joint press conference of the City of Eagle Pass and Maverick County Emergency Operations Center held on Wednesday, July 1, 2020, of the first multiple fatality report with two local people dying from the COVID-19 virus, one on Sunday, June 27, at a San Antonio medical center and a second one on Monday, June 29. Sifuentes added that 15 new confirmed positive COVID-19 cases in Maverick County were reported by the Texas Department of State Health Services on July 1st, bringing the total to 455 cases.
Sifuentes stated a total of 6,554 people in Maverick County have had the COVID-19 test administered with 5,128 negative results, 455 positive results, 177 recovered, 971 waiting test results, and active cases, five fatalities, and a positivity rate of infection of 6.9 percent.
Like the rest of the United States, Maverick County is experiencing a shortage of COVID-19 tests for local people wanting to get tested or retested after previously testing positive, said Sifuentes. Consequently, Sifuentes stated that the Eagle Pass and Maverick County Emergency Operations Center and Local Health Authority, Dr. Victoriano Valdez, were changing the guidelines for self-isolation or quarantine and retesting to the CDC guidelines adopted by the state of Texas, limiting testing to only people with symptoms of COVID-19 and reducing the period of self-isolation or quarantine from 21 days to 10 to 14 days and elimination of having to be retested before being released from self-isolation or quarantine.
The shortage of COVID-19 tests in Maverick County as well as in the United States presents a significant dilemma for public health authorities and health care providers as the novel coronavirus pandemic is infecting Americans at its highest peak level of over 50,000 daily cases, jeopardizing the health and safety of Americans.
Despite promises by President Donald J. Trump and his administration that anyone who wanted to be tested would be tested, the stark reality of current events concerning COVID-19 testing is that it is being limited to only people with one or more symptoms of COVID-19 such as fever, coughing or sore throat. Scientists report that approximately 40 to 45 percent of infected COVID-19 people are asymptomatic and unaware they are carriers of the deadly virus as they infect hundreds of other people, causing the virus to exponentially spread within communities. This is the current state Maverick County is in as of July 1, 2020.
Mayor Sifuentes highlighted that local COVID-19 testing centers were limiting the total number of daily tests in Maverick County due to the shortage of test kits and certain chemicals needed to complete the tests in laboratories. For instance, United Medical Centers was going to limit their daily testing to only 90 people while the Fort Duncan Regional Medical Center was going to reduce their tests hours from 7 A.M. to 11 A.M. at their drive-through facility and the Maverick County Hospital District was temporarily closed due to one of their health care providers testing positive for COVID-19 and not reopening until Monday, July 6.
Sifuentes pointed out that the sole local hospital in Maverick County, Fort Duncan Regional Medical Center, reported having on July 1, 2020 a total of 22 people hospitalized in isolation rooms with five in the Intensive Care Unit, five under ventilators, one pending test results, and on the Medical Floor with 11 confirmed positive COVID-19 people and two pending test results, and in the Emergency Room with three people waiting for their test results.
Dr. Sergio Zamora, Director of the Intensive Care Unit at Fort Duncan Regional Medical Center, previously stated last week that there are only 10 Intensive Care Unit beds and 14 to 16 ventilators available at the local hospital. Dr. Zamora warned Maverick Countians to respect the CDC guidelines of wearing a face mask in public, practice social distancing (6 feet), wash hands frequently, use hand sanitizer, avoid gatherings of 10 or more people, limit travel to essential matters, and stay home to save lives because the local hospital does not have the capacity nor the health care personnel to handle more patients than stated.
The local medical center is close to capacity and if the number of positive COVID-19 cases continue to increase at its current surging pace in Maverick County, Maverick County runs the risk of overwhelming its health care system. The potential consequences of overwhelming the local health care system and resources may be catastrophic with community spread of the virus and hundreds of local people dying from COVID-19, particularly from the lack of health care services and facilities to treat the infected patients. Dr. Zamora noted that San Antonio medical centers are not accepting transfer patients with COVID-19 from Maverick County and South Texas because San Antonio and Bexar County were already at maximum capacity.
Mayor Sifuentes stated that the local hospital “is in a good state,” but was short of 12 registered nurses to assist it to handle the number of patients being treated at the facility. Sifuentes added that the state of Texas approved to provide the local hospital and Maverick County with six of the 12 nurses needed effective immediately, leaving a shortage of six nurses.
Sifuentes noted that the local Emergency Operations Center currently has six people working as contact tracers, but that the City and County were bringing in four new people (two from each entity) to handle the overload of staying in contact with all the people that tested positive for COVID-19 in Maverick County. He added that the majority of positive COVID-19 cases in Maverick County have come from family or social gatherings where people did not respect the CDC guidelines.
Mayor Sifuentes admonished people in Maverick County to wear face masks in public and when shopping at local businesses, and that if “you don’t want to wear the face mask, then go to another community to do your shopping.”
