Maverick County Residents Traveled the Most During Thanksgiving Holiday Than Any Other County in Texas, Study Finds
By: Ricardo E. Calderon, Eagle Pass Business Journal, Inc., Copyright 2021
Maverick County, Texas is nestled on the United States-Mexico border with Eagle Pass as its county seat and Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico as its Mexican sister city.
Like most U.S.-Mexico border counties, Maverick County has been severely afflicted by the novel coronavirus pandemic as its Maverick County Emergency Operation Center reported a total of 6,437 confirmed positive COVID-19 cases, 161 fatalities due to COVID-19, 757 active COVID-19 cases, 5,519 recovered people, 33 people hospitalized locally due to COVID-19, and a positivity rate of infection of 29.9% for the week of December 23-30, 2020, as of Thursday, December 30, 2020.
Prior to the advent of the Thanksgiving Holiday, Maverick County public health authorities, as well as State of Texas and United States, advised citizens not to travel during the Thanksgiving holiday in order to slow or stop the transmission of COVID-19 in the community.
Unfortunately, Maverick County residents did not pay attention to their public health authorities as a recent study by AdvisorSmith regarding the “Counties That Traveled the Most During Thanksgiving” discovered that Maverick County ranked No. 1 among Texas counties for the most residents who took trips during Thanksgiving week and ranked No. 4 in the United States among mid-size counties with a population of 25,000-100,000 residents.
In this study, AdvisorSmith examined anonymized data from mobile devices to determine the U.S. counties and states where residents took the most trips over the Thanksgiving holiday.
The AdvisorSmith study found that Maverick County residents took 10.6 long-distance trips of 100 miles or longer per 100 residents compared to the national average of 4.7 trips, over twice (2.25) the national average. Maverick County residents are highly mobile in taking long-distance trips.
The study also found that Maverick County was the only county from Texas in the top 50 midsize counties where the residents traveled the most. A midsize county is one with a population between 25,000-100,000 residents.
The study also found that among all of the Texas counties, Maverick County ranked No. 1 in the State of Texas with the highest number of residents taking a trip of 100 miles or longer with 10.6 trips per 100 residents, that is, 10.6% of Maverick County residents traveled during Thanksgiving holiday.
Other Texas counties among the highest in the U.S. include Webb County in the large county category with 10.1 long distance trips of 100 miles or longer per 100 residents and Midland County in the large county category with 7.2 per 100 residents. A large county is one with a population greater than 100,000 residents. So, Maverick County’s rate of 10.6 long distance trips of 100 miles or longer per 100 residents is greater than Webb County’s 10.1 and Midland County’s 7.2, establishing Maverick County with the highest rate of travel among all Texas counties during the Thanksgiving holiday.
The AdvisorSmith study findings are critical because it pinpoints an important factor of why Maverick County is experiencing an exponential growth or surge of confirmed positive COVID-19 cases since the Thanksgiving holiday. As 10.6% of Maverick County residents traveled 100 miles or longer during the Thanksgiving holiday, these residents contributed to the spread of COVID-19 to the communities they traveled to as well as to Maverick County by potentially infecting others or themselves with the deadly virus. The proof is in the evidence that during the month of December 2020, Maverick County registered the second highest number of confirmed positive COVID-19 infections with 1,554 and 11 fatalities.
According to Maverick County public health authorities, the number one contributing factor to local COVID-19 infections has been gatherings of 10 or more people and with people outside one’s immediate household family. Now, the second most important factor discovered by the AdvisorSmith study is traveling outside of Maverick County of at least 100 miles or greater.
Maverick County public health authorities are concerned about the exponential growth of new confirmed positive COVID-19 cases due to the Christmas and New Year holidays, which should start developing immediately after the New Year of 2021.
