April 29, 2020 505 PM
Number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the tri-county: Zero, according to Wednesday figures from the Texas Department of State Health Services.
Number of presumed cases: Nobody knows. Since not all patients meet qualifications for testing, local doctors are now “presuming” that some patients are positive for coronavirus without testing them, as The Big Bend Sentinel and Marfa Public Radio previously reported. Ekta Escovar, a member of the local COVID-19 task force and the local health authority for Brewster County, previously told The Big Bend Sentinel there is “no way” to determine an accurate count of local presumed-positive cases, since these numbers depend on the recommendations of individual doctors.
Number of people tested in the tri-county: At least 223. The tri-county got a huge bump in testing figures this weekend after Texas set up temporary testing sites. Sixty-four people were tested at the Marfa facility, as were 42 in Presidio, 51 in Alpine and 26 in Terlingua. At press time, it’s unclear how many of the tests completed this weekend are still pending results.
Testing per capita: With an estimated population of around 18,500 people, the tri-county’s local testing figures mean that about 12 in every 1,000 people have been tested for the coronavirus. Those figures are slightly higher than the state in general, where around 10 in every 1,000 people have been tested, but lower than the United States in general, where around 18 in every 1,000 people have been tested.
Number of unemployment claims in the tri-county area: Since the end of March, around 31,500 people have filed for unemployment in the Borderplex region – which includes Presidio, Brewster, Jeff Davis, Culberson, Hudspeth and El Paso counties – Workforce Solutions Borderplex said in a report this week.
Percentage of unemployed people in the tri-county area: In an expanded report from last week, the group pegged the unemployment rate at 10.2 percent for Presidio County, more than double the average state unemployment rate of 4.7 percent. For comparison, the unemployment rates in Brewster and Jeff Davis counties were 3.9 percent and 4.2 percent, respectively.
Local Paycheck Protection Payment (PPP) loans: Marfa National Bank has approved $1,051,000 in loans, of which around 25 percent (around $263,000) have already been paid out, bank president Chip Love said on Wednesday. Those numbers represent 22 businesses with around 153 employees, the vast majority of which are in-county, he said.
Case counts in the Far West Texas region: So far, at least seven counties in the region have confirmed coronavirus cases, according to the latest state figures on Wednesday. Those counties are El Paso (with 857 cases), Ector (78), Midland (75), Pecos (9), Winkler (3) and Crane (2). Reeves County also has at least three cases, according to the county’s hospital — though those numbers are not included in state figures, likely because the patients split their time between Reeves County and another place, and were instead counted elsewhere.
How the coronavirus has grown in West Texas: Even with state health authorities releasing new figures every day, it can be hard to conceptualize how coronavirus has grown in the region. Relying on data from Johns Hopkins University, Adrienne Humblet and Marfa City Councilmember Yoseff Ben-Yehuda have created this helpful graph showing counts of new cases in the region beginning April 19 and ending April 26.
The top line represents El Paso, while the middle line represents counties in the region with more than 50,000 people (Midland, Ector and Tom Green). The bottom line represents all counties with less than 50,000 people — though all new cases have come from just three counties: Pecos (with three new cases), Dawson (6) and Howard (3). More graphs like this are available at westtexasmap.com.
Case counts for Texas: Seven hundred thirty-two Texans have died of coronavirus, and 27,054 are known to have the virus, according to the latest state figures on Wednesday. In good news, 12,507 Texans have recovered.
Case counts for the United States: Over one million Americans are known to have coronavirus — by far the highest confirmed case-count in the world. Almost 59,000 Americans have died from the virus, and around 116,000 Americans have recovered from it.
