Delta Variant Surge in Maverick County Claims Another Fatality and Reopens Emergency Operations Center
By: Ricardo E. Calderon, Eagle Pass Business Journal, Inc., Copyright 2021
Maverick County is like the rest of the United States, including Texas, with a surge of Delta variant Covid-19 cases afflicting the county residents, as well as claiming the life of an unvaccinated 67 year old male hospitalized on August 23, 2021 at Fort Duncan Regional Medical Center in Eagle Pass, Texas.
During the month of August 2021, Maverick County has reported 655 positive confirmed COVID-19 cases, bringing the cumulative total to 11,592 cases, 254 probable cases, 233 active cases, 367 fatalities, and 11,208 recovered people, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS).
Maverick County’s sole hospital, Fort Duncan Regional Medical Center, is overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients, including 21 positive confirmed patients with 10 in the Intensive Care Unit and 9 on ventilators (100% Unvaccinated), 11 in the Medical Floor, and 3 probable cases under investigation.
The rise of Delta variant COVID-19 cases in Maverick County has caused the City of Eagle Pass and Maverick County to reopen its Emergency Operations Center (EOC), which had been closed since late May 2021. The Emergency Operations Center will be staffed with eight people, four from the City of Eagle Pass and four from Maverick County. The EOC will monitor the number of people in Maverick County who test positive for COVID-19, total fatalities, total recovered people, and the total number of vaccinated people.
Texas under Governor Greg Abbott has seen a surge of Delta variant COVID-19 cases since July 2021, including a high of 13,932 hospitalized patients on August 25, 2021,13,633 new confirmed positive cases, another 3,458 probable cases, and 236 fatalities on August 26, 2021. The cumulative total of fatalities in Texas increased to 54,691 people, 2,962,616 confirmed positive cases, another 551,102 probable cases, and 272,465 current active confirmed positive cases as of August 26, 2021, near record numbers since the COVID-19 pandemic began in February 2020.
As Texans are alarmingly infected with the Delta variant of COVID-19, Governor Abbott has issued Executive Orders against all public and governmental entities, including public school districts, from mandating face coverings and vaccines during the greatest time of need as millions of children return to school. Abbott has boxed himself in catering to a political minority of Republican followers while seeking re-election in 2022 and coveting the National Republican Party’s Presidential Nomination in 2024 than actually doing what’s in the best interest of 29 million Texans at its greatest moment of need and required leadership.
Texas government is totally dysfunctional and out of sync with its 29 million citizens. Instead, Abbott and his Republican Party are pursuing spending $2 Billion on border security, a controversial concrete barrier and fence, incarcerating undocumented immigrants for criminally trespassing, restricting Texans’ right to vote, and enacting the most restrictive and discriminatory voter suppression law in the nation while Texans are dying from the Delta variant and the state goes through its highest rate of hospitalized patients and infection of COVID-19 people since the pandemic began.
