Throughout the Rolling Plains area, hospitals and clinics have recently put new measures in place to combat the spread of Covid-19 and to treat patients who have been sickened by the virus and its variants. Genetic variants of SARS-CoV-2 have been emerging and circulating around the world throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, and recent U.S. media reports cite the Lambda variant as one to keep an eye on.
According to the Stonewall Memorial Hospital District, the parent provider of the clinics in Dickens and Kent counties and the hospital in Aspermont, Stonewall County has had two cases, Dickens County has had two cases, and Kent County has had two cases, as of August 16; in their August 25 report, SMHD indicated two cases in Kent County and made no mention of the other two counties.
Health officials in Snyder held a special virtual town hall meeting last week to address trends regarding Covid-19 cases in Scurry County, according to the Snyder News.
Local health authorities Dr. Bid Cooper and Dr. Ryan Morris discussed the positive test rates in Scurry County and the stress the situation is putting on their local Cogdell Memorial Hospital. The hospital has now opened a Covid-19 unit, located in the former obstetrics unit, with 12 beds, and the unit is currently full.
From August 15 to 22, the hospital reported 100 new positive cases, with 10 percent of those positive cases being fully vaccinated.
Morris spoke about the hospital having trouble sending non-Covid-19 patients to area hospitals for further treatment with their illness, saying that he had sent patients as far away as New Mexico and Colorado. He also said healthcare workers are seeing it affect a younger generation.
“This is not going through the nursing home wiping out the same population as we saw before because that population is vaccinated,” Morris told the Snyder News.
Thirty of the 100 positive cases were students. Cooper urged the community of Snyder to get vaccinated, as the vaccine is available free to residents of Scurry County. “I am pleading with everyone to get vaccinated. Vaccinations are available daily at Cogdell Family Clinic,” he said. “There is no doubt that vaccination is the best thing we can do.”
Snyder ISD is monitoring the situation, and as of last Wednesday they were on their 11th day of school with 34 students and 11 staff members testing positive. The district is offering free testing to employees through an initiative through the Texas Department of Emergency Management. The test is optional for students and no student will be tested without parent consent.
In Garza County, the Post Dispatch reported that its county had 21 active cases, down from 30 active cases the week prior.
The Garza County Health District is conducting Covid testing, and Hometown Pharmacy in Post has Johnson & Johnson vaccines available. Garza County has a fully vaccinated rate of 49 percent, the highest fullyvaccinated rate of any county in this area. (Most counties in this area have a fully vaccinated rate of about 30 percent, according to the Dispatch story.)
Crosby County, According to the Texas Department of State Health Services, has an estimated 31 cases.
In Hale County last week Covid-19 cases rose by 122 cases in three days, and most of those cases were in Plainview.
Plainview city manager Jeffrey Snyder said that 95% of active cases are being detected in individuals who are not vaccinated, according to the Plainview Herald.
The age group there with the highest increase is those 20 years old and younger. The latest available data shows 51 of the new cases were reported in that age group. There were also 33 new cases reported in those 21 to 40 years old, 28 new cases in those 41 to 60 years old and 10 new cases in those 61 or older, said the newspaper’s reporting.
In Floydada, the school district reported 2 elementary students with positive cases, 1 junior high student case and 1 junior high staff case. In addition, 9 students were quarantined.
Lubbock and Lubbock County reported one new Covid death on August 25, bringing the total to 760 deaths since the start of the pandemic. In its weekly analysis the Lubbock Health Department, reporting weekly for both the city and the county, detailed 301 new cases for a total of 55,006.
As of August 25, there were 3,383 active cases – similar to the numbers in mid-January. Also as of August 25, 50,863 people recovered from COVID.
In Lubbock County, 39% of people living in the county are fully vaccinated as of Aug. 24. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers someone fully vaccinated two weeks after they have received a singledose shot (Johnson & Johnson) or a second shot (either Pfizer or Moderna).
The county is up 2.13% from the previous week’s tally of fully vaccinated.
46% of people in Lubbock County have received at least one dose of the vaccine.
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