Eagle Pass ISD Reports First Positive COVID-19 Cases of New School Year
By: Ricardo E. Calderon, Eagle Pass Business Journal, Inc., Copyright 2021
The highly transmissible Delta variant of COVID-19 is rapidly surging across the United States, state of Texas, and now in Eagle Pass and Maverick County.
The Eagle Pass Independent School District (EPISD) started in-person instruction for the new 2021-2022 school year on Monday, August 16, 2021 with over 14,300 students enrolled from Kindergarten through 12 grade amidst chaos sowed by Governor Gregg Abbott who issued an Executive Order prohibiting public governmental entities, including school districts, from requiring face coverings and vaccines.
Similarly to the surge of positive Delta variant cases in the country and state of Texas, the Eagle Pass Independent School District reported at least three cases of students or staff infected with COVID-19 during the first week of school, including one case each at C. C. Winn High School, Eagle Pass High School, and an undisclosed elementary school.
Just one day after school started, C. C. Winn High School issued a letter on August 17, 2021 notifying parents, guardians, and staff that one person had been lab confirmed positive for COVID-19 on the first day of school on August 16, 2021. Eagle Pass High School also issued a lab confirmed positive COVID-19 letter on August 19, 2021, notifying parents and staff that on the second day of class, August 17, 2021, one of its students or staff members had tested positive for COVID-19. Eagle Pass ISD Superintendent Samuel Mijares also noted that another student or staff member at an undisclosed elementary school had tested positive for COVID-19.
Maverick County Judge David R. Saucedo announced on August 17, 2021 that there were 24 positive COVID-19 patients admitted at Fort Duncan Regional Medical Center, the sole hospital in Maverick County, with three persons on ventilators and over 90 percent of those admitted in the hospital are unvaccinated persons. Previously, Eagle Pass Fire Chief Manuel Mello had stated that Fort Duncan Regional Medical Center was “overwhelmed” with positive COVID-19 cases.
The Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) reported 34 new lab confirmed positive COVID-19 cases in Maverick County on August 19, 2021, bringing a total cumulative of 11,462 positive cases with 280 active cases and another 251 probable cases, and 366 total fatalities. Statewide, DSHS reported a total of 10,772 new lab confirmed positive cases, 3,285 probable cases, and 194 fatalities on August 19, 2021, bringing the cumulative total of 2,865,433 positive cases, 528,408 probable cases, and 53,564 fatalities. DSHS also reported that 12,705 Texans are hospitalized with positive COVID-19 cases as of August 18, 2021, overwhelming Texas hospitals.
The Delta variant and COVID-19 is so bad in Texas that even the highly protected Governor Gregg Abbott tested positive on August 17, 2021 after attending a Republican political fundraising rally in Collin County, Texas with over 600 maskless attendees seeking to rub elbows and take photos with Abbott in exchange for making a political contribution to his re-election campaign war chest, forcing him to quarantine at the Governor’s Mansion in Austin, Texas.
Texas counties, cities, and public school districts are defying Governor Abbott’s Executive Order prohibiting face coverings and vaccines as they declare public health emergencies in their communities by their local health authorities, allowing the use of face coverings within their communities and schools.
Governor Abbott and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is indicted and awaiting trial, appealed several state district courts who granted temporary restraining orders and injunctions allowing the use of face coverings to the Texas Supreme Court, which dismissed their appeal on a technicality without issuing a ruling on their legal arguments. The Texas Supreme Court’s denial of Abbott’s appeal on August 19, 2021 allows the use of face coverings temporarily until the cases wind their way through the Court of Appeals before coming before the Texas Supreme Court. Meanwhile, Texas’ COVID-19 infections are surging to levels unseen since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 and are expected to peak in another 10-14 days, jeopardizing the capacities of hospitals in the state.
The COVID-19 surge of positive Delta variant cases is so bad that the Texas Education Agency (TEA) reversed its previous policy of not requiring public school districts to notify parents of positive cases in their childrens’ schools on August 19, 2021. TEA now is requiring public school districts to notify teachers, parents, students, and staff of positive COVID-19 cases in classrooms or extracurricular or after-school programs.
