CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Once the coronavirus pandemic hit, one of the first moves local health officials made was to try and track the numbers associated with the outbreaks.
One of the first to volunteer for that job was Dan McGinn, the City of Corpus Christi's Director of Planning. He and his staff continue to try and balance their city workload along with keeping track of the COVID-19 numbers.
"As the Director of Planning we’re looking at five, 10, 20 years into the future," McGinn said. "You know, how is the city developing land use, transportation issues."
Once the pandemic began, someone had to take on the job of compiling all the numbers that were coming from the health department. That’s when McGinn volunteered his services.
”Our health department needed some assistance," McGinn said. "We deal with data quite a bit so it was kind of a natural fit for us to try to step in and help with that effort.”
McGinn and his staff have been able to maintain their city planning duties at the same time they tackle all of those COVID-19 numbers during their afternoon work time.
”It’s kind of all hands on deck approach in our group," McGinn said. "Look at data and to see trends, create graphics and power points in that kind of thing so it’s just kind of another data set for us. A fairly easy transition for us. We’re certainly not health experts.”
Public Health Director Annette Rodriguez appreciates the job that McGinn and his team are doing to help keep everyone informed.
"We’re just giving him numbers; we’re not giving them names of individuals were not given them HIPPA confidential information," Rodriguez said. "But what he actually did for me is he became the liaison between the numbers and the City Manager."
McGinn said taking a look at the numbers every day since March wasn’t so bad until we hit late June. That’s when the surge in cases hit. He said it did take a toll mentally.
He tried to do everything he could to keep his mind off of what was happening. He said now that our numbers have dropped, he’s feeling better about his COVID-19 numbers job.
He’s hoping that we’re heading in the right direction. He doesn’t want to have to count up the numbers from another surge after the last one cost hundreds of lives.