The Starr County Health Authority Dr. Antonio Falcon announced his resignation Wednesday, closing out his nearly nine-month tenure as the county’s leading health official.
During a news conference Wednesday in which Falcon and Starr County Judge Eloy Vera touted the county’s vaccination rate, Falcon said he was ready to step down and hand the reins over to someone else.
“We have accomplished all of what we wanted to accomplish,” Falcon said. “With all that being said, I would like to announce to the community that I have tendered in my resignation to Judge Vera, verbally, that I would like for the county to consider getting a new health authority by June 1.”
“I have very much enjoyed doing what I’ve been doing and helping get our community to where we’re at and I think it’s time that maybe this position go to one of our younger physicians in the community that can continue to look at broader picture of health in Starr County,” Falcon continued. “We got involved in this because of COVID but as all of you know out there, there’s many, many more significant medical problems in our community that need attention and are going to need, especially long term, attention.”
The Starr County commissioners appointed Falcon as the county’s health authority in August following the abrupt resignation of Dr. Jose Vazquez from the position just a few days prior. Vazquez resigned after the majority of the county commissioners rejected a proposal by Vera to grant Vazquez a contract that included a $120,000 annual salary.
Instead, the commissioners went with Falcon who agreed to do the job for the same $500 monthly compensation that the county had paid Vazquez.
Falcon said that when he took on the role, he had two goals in mind. The first was to “calm the community down” and the second was to get people vaccinated.
“I had anticipated that the vaccines would be available sometime after Thanksgiving and soon after that, we started vaccinating,” he said.
Initially, the county had trouble obtaining enough vaccine doses for the community but county officials appealed to the state to increase the number of doses they were allocated.
“As a result of that, here we are now with incredible numbers,” Falcon said.
Going forward, as the county continues to push those who have not yet gotten vaccinated to do so, Falcon said the county will also focus on vaccinating children once the vaccine manufactured by Pfizer-BioNTech is approved for children 12 years and older.
Pfizer announced Tuesday that they expected to receive a response from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on their application for an expanded Emergency Use Authorization for their COVID-19 vaccine that would include individuals 12 to 15 years of age.
“The county judge’s office has been in contact with the school superintendents to try to get students vaccinated at the school,” Falcon said. “They have also been in contact with doctors’ offices and the pharmacies so that we continue to have a broad range of entities that are vaccinating our community.”
Of the vaccines already administered, Vera noted that Starr County’s vaccination rates were the highest in the Rio Grande Valley.
“Last night, I was hearing our president saying that by July 4 he wanted to have 70% of the population with at least one vaccine,” Vera said. “Well, I am really delighted to say that in Starr County, we’ve surpassed that already.”
Indeed, as of Tuesday, about 75% of Starr County residents, 16 or older, had received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, according to data compiled by the Texas Department of State Health Services. More than 62% of the same population is now fully vaccinated.
Out of the county’s total population, 53% have received at least one dose and 44% have been fully vaccinated.
“It couldn’t have happened without the help of everyone that came together as a community and, more importantly, the citizens of the county that believed in our medical community and trusted us and went out and got the vaccine,” Vera said.
Because of that, Vera said he would no longer issue emergency orders like those he had in place throughout the majority of the pandemic that would set capacity limits in certain, requiring the use of nose and mouth coverings, and encouraging social distancing.
However, local governments had long been stripped of their ability to enforce the limits set in those orders by Gov. Greg Abbott who stated in his executive orders that local officials could not criminally penalize individuals for not following safety precautions.
“You all have proven to me that we don’t need any orders,” Vera said, addressing his residents. “You know what you need to do, you know what works and we’re going to leave it up to the people of Starr County to continue, because we’re not out of this thing, the virus is still out there.”
He urged residents to continue practicing social distancing, handwashing and the use of face coverings, crediting the latter for the county’s success in keeping the number of new COVID-19 cases low.
For last few weeks, the daily number of cases remained in single digits and the county only reported two COVID-19 related deaths throughout the entire month of April, according to DSHS data.
“We’re going to be a little more relaxed as far as what you all need to do but, having said that, I do want to encourage those that have not received the vaccine to please, please get the vaccine,” Vera said. “That is the only way we will get to be 100% safe in Starr County.”
