Eagle Pass Mayor Recommends Online/Remote Instruction for School Children During First 4 Weeks as Maverick County Reports Two More COVID-19 Deaths, 162 New Confirmed Positive COVID-19 Cases, and Positivity Rate of 22.2% on August 19, 2020
By: Ricardo E. Calderon, Eagle Pass Business Journal, Inc., Copyright 2020
With 12 days remaining for the opening of the 2020-2021 school year on August 31, 2020 at the Eagle Pass Independent School District, Eagle Pass Mayor Luis E. Sifuentes, who works as Head Counselor at Eagle Pass High School, announced to parents to follow the recommendation of Eagle Pass Independent School District Superintendent Samuel Mijares and the Board of Trustees to do online/remote instruction for their school age children during the first four weeks of school instruction due to the high rate of infection for COVID-19 in Maverick County at a press conference held on Wednesday, August 19, 2020.
Mayor Sifuentes reported two new deaths of Maverick County citizens from COVID-19, 162 new confirmed positive COVID-19 cases, and the significant increase of the positivity rate of COVID-19 infections to 22.2% on August 19, 2020. Sifuentes added that these public health statistics reflect that COVID-19 infections are too high in Maverick County to warrant sending children to in-person instruction at the Eagle Pass Independent School District schools. Sifuentes noted that he has three children and he and his wife have decided to to have their children receive online/remote instruction for the first four weeks of school as being in the best interest of their health and safety.
Mayor Sifuentes pointed out that although the positivity rate in Maverick County increased to 22.2% on August 19, the true positivity rate for the month of July 2020 was over 40% and it appears that the month of August does not look getting any better than July. The 22.2% positivity rate is the overall rate for Maverick County from March 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic started to August 19, 2020.
Sifuentes stated “It is not a safe time” right now, citing how some school districts and colleges who have started classes with in-person instruction have had a high rate of students testing positive for COVID-19 and reversing to online/remote instruction.
Mayor Sifuentes stated that the City of Eagle Pass and Maverick County had purchased over 2,300 “Hot Spots” for internet connectivity to assist the Eagle Pass Independent School District students access the internet to participate in online/remote instruction during the first four weeks of school, as well as install Wi-Fi internet at all City of Eagle Pass community centers, library, and public housing and at all Maverick County Precinct community centers. Sifuentes stated that ‘the best thing is to stay at home and do remote instruction” because “there is no discussion that right now is not an ideal time” to send children to in-person school instruction. He noted that the Eagle Pass Independent School District provides parents the option to elect online/remote instruction or in-person instruction for their children, however, the Superintendent and the Board of Trustees are recommending online/remote instruction for the first four weeks of school.
Mayor Sifuentes reported that as of August 19, 2020, a total of 14,299 people in Maverick County have been administered a COVID-19 test with 3,087 positive results, 10,785 negative results, 837 active cases, 2,179 recovered, 71 deaths, 42 currently hospitalized patients, and the positivity rate increased to 22.2%.
Interestingly, Mayor Sifuentes explained that the reason Maverick County reported 162 new positive COVID-19 cases on August 19 is because some of the local health care clinics and doctor’s offices administering COVID-19 tests had not reported their test results since last Thursday, August 13, 2020. Public health experts have noted that the true count of COVID-19 infections and deaths in the United States have been significantly undercounted and are greater than reported by public health officials.
An August 13, 2020 New York Times documented that Maverick County is one of the top five communities in the United States with the highest rate of new COVID-19 infections relative to its population, together with Laredo, Texas, Brownsville-Harlingen, Texas, Corpus Christi, Texas, and Payson, Arizona.
Undoubtedly, Maverick County citizens have not slowed the community spread of COVID-19 and the deadly virus continues surging in the U.S.-Mexico border county, raising serious health and safety concerns for its approximately 60,000 citizens, particularly people with underlying health conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, kidney/renal problems, obesity, asthma, COPD, and others.
