Hurricane Hanna affects county COVID-19 report
As the county recovers in the wake of Hurricane Hanna, Hidalgo County officials are reporting 596 new cases of COVID-19.
The county announced the new cases in a Monday news release that also reported 11 new deaths, bringing the total amount of known positive cases in the county to 15,749 out of 103,718 administered deaths. With the new deaths, the county death total for COVID-19 now stands at 460.
The news release comes after the county declined to release their weekend report of COVID-19 cases due to technical difficulties from Hurricane Hanna. It wasn’t immediately clear if these numbers also included the weekend count.
“A natural disaster in the middle of a pandemic is quite a challenge. However, we must continue to remind ourselves that to take every available precaution to prevent the spread of COVID-19,” Hidalgo County Judge Richard F. Cortez stated in the release, adding that he expressed condolences to those who have lost a loved one from the contagious disease.
According to the release, health officials stated that due to significant technical difficulties as a result of Hurricane Hanna, the numbers and data reported to the county by the hospitals are not complete. This includes the data for the age, gender and city for the positive cases. Only a summary listing the amount of cases per city was provided.
As of Monday, there are 7,548 net active cases with 460 people released from isolation on Monday meaning that they have been symptom-free for 10 days, including three days without a fever. A total of 7,734 people have been released from isolation, nearly half of the total cases.
There are currently 903 people hospitalized with complications from the virus with 245 of those cases being treated in intensive care units.
Starr County announced late Sunday night 18 new cases of the virus, bringing the COVID-19 total in the county to 1,799.
Of those cases, 545 patients have recovered, 1,237 people are recovering under medical care and 17 fatalities have been confirmed. The county is waiting state confirmation on 38 other fatalitites.
