As COVID-19 testing continues in Cameron County, the county is experiencing an increase in COVID-19 cases, health officials said.
According to figures provided by Cameron County Public Health, 2,752 cases of COVID-19 were reported from Jan. 22-24, which averages out to about 900 cases a day. Eighty-three of those results were from at home tests.
Based on the PCR test, there were 2,002 confirmed cases and 667 probable cases based on antigen test. There were also five reported deaths.
“Lots of people are getting tested and lots of people are turning out positive and are sick versus before all this peak, when people got sick there was like only a 4% chance it was COVID,” said Dr. James Castillo, health authority for Cameron County, on Tuesday. “Now it’s more like a 40% chance and that’s a big deal … so there’s a lot of people being tested and a lot of people coming back positive.”
Brownsville, Harlingen and San Benito came in at the highest numbers at 911, 443, and 229, respectively, based on PCR testing. On the antigen testing, Brownsville reported 333 case, Harlingen, 188 cases and San Benito, 63 cases.
Castillo said he doesn’t believe the virus has peaked in Cameron County and continues to urge the unvaccinated to get the vaccination.
“Just looking at the lines and the demand for testing I am worried. … Imagine a speedometer on a car it goes up to a certain number and after that you could be going faster and you don’t know it. I am kind of worried. We are seeing like 900 cases a day and it’s taking a long time for those sites to test and there are long lines to get tested and I am sure that is discouraging some people from getting tested,” he said.
Although some individuals have received and are using the at-home COVID-19 testing kit and are encouraged to report the results to the county, Castillo doesn’t believe everyone will.
“I would say that the number is an underestimate from what is actually out there and it’s going to start coming down to reality and down from there. … I am not sure we are at the peak yet but we hopefully getting there and then hopefully we will start seeing it come down soon,” he said.
As of Monday, total statistics for the county show there have been 2,058 COVID-19 related deaths in the county, with 191,255 people being tested. Of that number, 61,222 individuals tested positive while 120,333 tested negative. There were 54,263 recovered cases and 13,824 antigen recovered cases.
