In addition to confirmed cases, deaths and hospitalizations, outbreaks of COVID-19 are also on the rise.
Outbreaks of COVID-19, which are defined as two or more related cases, have seen a recent increase, according to Dr. Emilie Prot, regional medical director for the Texas Department of State Health Services’ Public Health Region 11.
“We’ve had more outbreaks for the past month compared to previously,” Prot said during a new conference call Friday.
She said the outbreaks have been concentrated across the region in schools, sports teams, nursing homes, and congregated settings such as prisons or jails.
“Our team is working to make sure that … outbreaks do not continue to grow, that it is under control,” she said, adding they are working to ensure that those have been identified as positive remain in isolation while those who have been in close contact with people who are positive, remain in quarantine.
Overall, COVID-19 cases have been going up in the last seven days through all of Public Health Region 11, which is an 11-county area in South Texas that includes the Rio Grande Valley, Laredo and Corpus Christi.
“Our acceleration, or rate of change, is at 5.8% over the preceding week,” Cuevas said. “We’ve had 9,409 cases across the region in the past seven day difference, we’ve also had an increase in deaths — we’ve had 159 deaths over the last week which is an increase of 3.1% from the prior week.”
On Friday, Hidalgo County reported than nine more residents died due to complications related to COVID-19 and another 718 people tested positive.
Of the 718 people who tested positive, 442 are confirmed positive while 275 are probable, and one is only a suspected case.
The county now has a total of 2,427 COVID-related deaths and a total of 63,551 confirmed cases since the start of the pandemic of which 2,318 are considered active.
They also reported there were 425 COVID-19 hospitalizations and, of those, 149 patients are being treated in an intensive care unit.
In Cameron County, there were 12 more coronavirus-related deaths and 150 new cases, bringing the totals there to 1,320 deaths and 34,841 confirmed cases. Currently, 6,454 of those cases are considered active.
Willacy County reported 10 additional confirmed cases for a total of 1,958 in the county.
As health officials work to vaccinate as many people as possible, Prot urged patience.
“This is going to take a long time — several months,” Prot said. “Right now, the manufacturers are not producing enough vaccine.”
She added that a lot of planning goes into vaccine distribution but sometimes those plans have to be scrapped with short notice.
“Every week, states are getting allocated a certain number and all we know is what we’re going to be receiving that week,” she said. “A lot of the local health departments, us included, are planning things ahead for the next week but then sometimes things change because we might not get enough vaccines to give out at every single site.”
So far, Public Health Region 11 has held 22 vaccination clinics where they’ve administered 3,283 vaccine doses.
Through week 7, which ends on Saturday, vaccine allocation throughout the entire region has reached 264,975 doses.
For those people who have been vaccinated, and for those waiting to get one, Prot reminded that they must follow long-established safety protocols of wearing masks over their nose and mouth and keeping safe distance from others.
“Vaccines alone will not end the pandemic,” Prot said.
