As questions about the omicron variant persist nearly as much as the coronavirus has, the city of Edinburg held the first meeting of its newly formed public health task force in an effort to provide answers to residents.
The task force gathered for the first time Friday with representatives from the city, the Hidalgo County Health and Human Services Department, DHR Health, South Texas Health System-Edinburg, the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley School of Medicine, the Edinburg school district and the Texas Division of Emergency Management.
Edinburg Mayor Ramiro Garza Jr. said he asked the entities to participate in the task force to share ideas and resources about how to keep the community safe.
An outcome of Friday’s meeting was the decision to create a resource site where residents can find a list of available testing sites, vaccine clinics and other resources all in one place.
“I wanted to discuss today what roles everybody plays, what resources are available, and I think everybody agreed for us to have a resource site where we can have information available for our residents for testing, for vaccines, or information that families may need in order to keep the community safe,” Garza said. “That was the purpose today and we’re going to continue meeting and hoping to utilize that task force as a guide as we navigate through this pandemic.”
A lot of the information that will be featured on the resource site is already out there, Garza clarified, but many people might not know where to find it. They hope to resolve that issue with this site.
As an example, he said the site could have a search feature that residents can use to find the nearest testing site or vaccination site based on their address.
He said he also wants to provide resources for people looking for employment or for small businesses that have been struggling due to the pandemic.
“There’s a lot of resources out there and I believe that having them all available in one area, this resource site, I think will help our community,” Garza said.
The public health task force will continue to meet once a month but could meet more frequently if needed.
For the next meeting, Garza asked the stakeholders to provide a list of all resources that are available within the entities they represent for the resource site.
At that point, Garza said he hopes to have a timeline of when the site will be available to the public.
“There’s a lot of misinformation out there about this pandemic and we’re hoping that this resource site will help serve as a clearinghouse of information for people and, again, just so they can have the latest information,” Garza said.
He said his goal is to provide some kind of step-by-step process that residents can follow if they are exposed to COVID-19 or if they test positive, sothey know what’s available to them.
“To me, I think that’s the overall goal here,” Garza said.
