Hand show holding paper with word caution coronavirus covid 19
(Seguin) — There may be some signs of slight improvements when it comes to the local battle against the COVID-19 pandemic. The Seguin City Council received an update on Tuesday night about how the city, county, GRMC and others are working to slow the spread of the virus.
Seguin City Manager Steve Parker the number of cases continues to rise, but he says there’s been a slight decline in the hospitalization rate at GRMC.
“If you look at their seven-day rolling average for new daily admissions, this week, they are averaging about four patients a day coming in for COVID. Last week, that number was seven (patients per day). The actual (total) number of patients in the hospital — the seven-day rolling average is 33 now, where last week, it was 38. So that’s good news, except for the number of deaths that have come in over the last several weeks,” said Parker.
Parker says that’s a little bit of good news, but he stresses that the fight is long from over. In fact, he says deaths continue to rise. He says there have now been 22 Guadalupe County residents who have died from the disease at GRMC.
Parker also says that people continue to recover from the virus, including several members of the city’s staff. He says the virus has definitely had an impact on the city’s operations, much like it has other employers in the community.
“Just a couple of weeks ago, we had almost 15 confirmed positive cases. Now we are currently at four confirmed cases. We’ve had several employees recover. There has been nobody hospitalized with our cases. We haven’t see anyone with dramatic symptoms among our employees. But it is something that we continue to monitor. That’s one of the things that, you know, you take a look at a pandemic — it’s not just case counts (and) deaths. There is an impact on operations. When you have your police department and several of your 911 operators get it, now you are paying them overtime. That’s an impact on the economy, relating to the funding that has to come from citizens to pay for those things. That same thing happens to small businesses as well. So we talk about relieving and trying to change the narrative here. That’s what we really are trying to do in a lot of ways — is trying to make sure that these businesses aren’t having to close and aren’t having to pay overtime to keep their businesses moving along,” said Park.
Guadalupe County officials on Tuesday released the latest data from the Texas Department of State Health Services. There are 1536 cases now reported in Guadalupe County. That total includes 441 confrimed active cases, 600 pending cases — which are positive cases that have not yet been confirmed, and there are 495 people who have recovered from the virus.