June 10, 2020 623 PM
FAR WEST TEXAS — Over the last week, coronavirus case counts have continued to rise in the tri-county and elsewhere in Texas. In the process, these new cases continue to raise new questions about Texas’ approach to the coronavirus crisis, on everything from the state’s quick reopening to issues around contact tracing and reporting.
On Saturday, the state reported more than 1,800 new cases of coronavirus. It’s the most new cases that Texas has reported in a single day since the coronavirus crisis began — and it comes even as testing in the state has started to slow.
In a Brewster County Commissioners Court meeting on Wednesday morning, Dr. Ekta Escovar, the local health authority for Brewster, said it is “not surprising” that Texas’ cases are continuing to climb but that it is a “concerning trend” how quickly they are now rising.
“We are seeing an uptick in cases across the state,” Dr. Escovar told commissioners.
On Friday, local officials reported the first coronavirus case in Marfa. The news followed the first Presidio County coronavirus case in late May, a “travel-related case” involving a woman in her 40s in the City of Presidio.
The Marfa patient is a 40-year-old man who recently traveled to other cities with outbreaks. And since the man has four family members, the Texas Department of State Health Services are treating those family members as four additional “probables” — bringing Presidio County’s probable case count all the way up to six.
Then, on Tuesday, there was a major update with the case. The family had “not been respecting control measures,” the Presidio County sheriff’s office said on social media, and therefore “the probability exists of possible spread” in the community.
Presidio County Judge Cinderela Guevara later released her own news release confirming the news. In response, the Texas Department of State Health Services issued an order to the family requiring them to quarantine.
In nearby counties, case counts also continue to climb. Hudspeth County’s case count has continued to inch up, from two last week to four at press time.
But last week, when the case count stood at three, multiple Hudspeth County officials told The Big Bend Sentinel that they had not heard about a third case. State health officials had only told them about two, they said.
“They have not reported it to me yet,” Thomas Neely, county judge for Hudspeth County, said in an interview. Bob Dickenson, the emergency management coordinator for Hudspeth County, said the same.
“I think the state has an odd way of posting stuff,” Dickenson added. “I don’t trust them, honestly.”
Another Far West Texas county that has seen its case counts continue to climb is Crane County.
As recently as May 25, Crane had case counts in the single digits. But that number continues to rise, and at press time sits at 28. At least five people have died. All of those cases have apparently come from just one facility: the Focused Care nursing home in Crane.
Fifteen residents and 13 staff members have come down with the virus, a spokesperson for the facility said in an email Tuesday. At least three of those residents are considered recovered, while two more are awaiting test results.
Perhaps most troubling, though, are the updates in Pecos. Cases there have spiked, propelled largely by outbreaks at Texas jails. But when the Texas Department of State Health Services reported the county’s latest case counts on Tuesday, the number dropped precipitously, from 105 to 15.
The Big Bend Sentinel is still working to get more information on this situation, though it appears state health officials have removed any jail cases from the local case count. There have been concerns about prison numbers getting double-counted, as both county and prison officials tally those numbers. And at the Brewster County Commissioners Court meeting on Tuesday, Dr. Escovar said the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (which runs state prison facilities) is no longer reporting new cases to the state.
