‘This dern disease’: Facing rising COVID numbers and vaccine resistance, STC partners with Hidalgo County

From left to right: South Texas College President Dr. Ricardo J. Solis, STC Trustee Dr. Alejo Salinas, Board Chair Rose Benavidez and Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez announced their partnership to provide immunization coverage in communities in the Rio Grande Valley. (Courtesy: STC)

McALLEN — Facing rising numbers of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, along with slowing vaccination rates, Hidalgo County and South Texas College announced a partnership Wednesday they expect will increase vaccination rates and bolster the area’s pandemic preparedness.

County and STC officials at the event described the college using its vocational nursing, associate degree nursing and paramedic students to hold vaccination drives at campuses. They described students serving as front-line vaccinators, along with taking part in outreach campaigns and block walking in an effort to reach unvaccinated populations — particularly the 18- to 35-year-old age group.

“Who better to go out and help educate than young students with a lot of desire to educate the community?” Hidalgo County Health and Human Services CEO Eddie Olivarez said.

Olivarez and County Judge Richard F. Cortez painted a grim picture.

There are currently 25 COVID-19 infected children in pediatrics in hospitals, Olivarez said, seven of them in intensive care units. He said the third wave of the pandemic is upon us.

Cortez recounted the trials and tribulations of the pandemic’s first two waves.

“I do not want to go back to last July. Last July — who would ever think, who would ever know, who would ever believe if you were to tell them, that we were putting 35 to 40, 42 bodies in reefer trailers, because the morgues, the funeral homes, did not have sufficient space to have them,” he said.

The advice of doctors, advice like social distancing and vaccinations, has helped slow the spread of the coronavirus in the county in the past. He said that advice can do the same thing again.

“By following those protocols, by getting vaccinated, the trend started to go down and down and down and down,” he said. “Then we found out that this dern disease is pretty smart. It said, ‘Ha! You’re doing all these things; well I’m gonna change myself a little bit, I’m going to vary myself a little bit.’ And we’re starting to get these different variants.”

STC leadership at the event said the college’s staff and students can help spread that message and help make those medical steps in actuality.

“What we’re doing today is we’re announcing that we’re going to be prepared to increase and augment our efforts, if needed,” STC President Ricardo Solis said. “We have many centers already established throughout the county for vaccinations; however, there always has been a need for additional personnel to assist in these matters.”

Its unclear how many students will join the effort. Olivarez described the amount of students involved in the partnership as certainly more than are involved now, perhaps in the hundreds. He described the organization of student deployment being in the planning stage, saying the entities hope to host a vaccine clinic within the next two weeks and hope for it to be fully operational around Labor Day.

Rose Benavidez, STC board chair, said the partnership would likely resemble the college’s involvement in Starr County.

“We modeled this over an effort that we had in Starr County as well,” she said. “So what we had students doing, at any particular time we could have anywhere from 100-150 students at a vaccination event. And we had students that were doing shots in arms if they were already at a certain level in the nursing program. We had students doing data entry on programming that the state requires for everyone being vaccinated, to have record in the state system.”

Other students in that effort helped with patient intake; some helped with patient observation after vaccines were administered.

Benavidez underscored the importance of both the medical and medical outreach components of the partnership.

“Maybe we change one person’s mind, and that prevents 20 other people from being infected,” she said.