CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — With COVID-19 numbers rising all around the state and here in the Coastal Bend, we wondered what the next few months are going to look like here in our area.
3News spoke with Health Director Annette Rodriguez to get an answer to the question and here’s what he found out.
A graph is showing what our local health experts believe we are going to see by Christmas time. Another huge surge in positive COVID-19 cases like what we saw back in July during a surge that saw our daily positive count reach 605 people in one day.
”I am most worried right now about our numbers being too high our numbers are close to 100 and that’s way too high especially if you’re going into the second wave or a surge because your baseline now isn’t zero your baseline is 50, 60 or 70 and we know this is an exponential growth,” said Rodriguez.
Our COVID-19 numbers had been comparatively low until recently. We began to see our numbers skyrocket into the triple digits after Halloween. Health officials say it yet again proves that large gatherings and parties are continuing to cause a spike in our numbers.
“I also know from our phone banks at the health district that people were calling because they went to some type of activity or party with Halloween and they felt like they got sick so they were wanting to get tested and that was very quick,” said Rodriguez. “I’m talking three days after Halloween. So, we kind of been watching this.”
This surge is happening under a different set of circumstances versus what we saw in July. Right now, many children are in school and bars are open. Restaurants seating has expanded. In July they were allowed 50 percent capacity and now it’s up to 75 percent.
With Thanksgiving just weeks away and Christmas quickly following after that Rodriguez believes under our current guidelines and mandates now is not the time to let our guard down. We’re going to have to largely rely on wearing masks and social distancing when we leave the house.
”I can see the pandemic fatigue is setting in I can see it here at the health district with our staff and I remind them if you need to take two days off we need to take some time off,” said Rodriguez. “There is no light at the end of the tunnel but there wasn’t and now there is this week on Monday when they told us there was treatment for COVID-19 to me that’s a huge light at the end of the tunnel.”
Until vaccines and therapies get here Rodriguez says stay home.
“I really want citizens if they are able to stay home, to stay home I mean that’s gonna be the best bet for everyone,” said Rodriguez
Rodriguez says that a new antibody therapy is being shipped to our State, but, only 5 thousand doses are on the way. The therapy is to be used on patients who show little to moderate signs of sickness. A light at the end of the tunnel but not enough of a relief as there are over 138 thousand active cases across the State and over 400 of those here in Nueces County.
For the latest updates on coronavirus in the Coastal Bend, click here.
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