Tuesday, January 5, 2021
Trauma Service Area O, which includes Hays and Travis counties, broke a 15% COVID-19 hospitalization-to-capacity rate for the third consecutive day Tuesday, according to Hays County Emergency Management Coordinator Alex Villalobos.
Villalobos reported the news in Tuesday’s Commissioners Court meeting to alert the commissioners that should the 15% rate continue for seven consecutive days, certain restrictions on places of business, occupations and hospitals will be triggered due to Gov. Greg Abbott’s Executive Order No. 32.
Counties with high hospitalizations are excluded from the reopenings that occurred on Oct. 14, per GA-32. Areas with high hospitalizations means any Trauma Service Area that has had seven consecutive days in which the number of COVID‑19 hospitalized patients as a percentage of total hospital capacity exceeds 15 percent.
KUT
UT Austin nursing student Paige Holloway gets the COVID-19 vaccine at Dell Medical School on Dec. 15.
As part of the strategy to immunize people as quickly and efficiently as possible in Texas, H-E-B, CVS, Kroger and Walgreens make up a significant chunk of companies administering the COVID-19 vaccine.
The problem with the state s plan is pretty obvious for officials in low-income communities of color: These communities don’t tend to attract a lot of big chain stores.
Manor Mayor Larry Wallace said his suburban community in the eastern part of Travis County is going to have a harder time getting access to the vaccine.
Hays County in the process of vaccinating healthcare workers, first responders universitystar.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from universitystar.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Monday, December 28, 2020
Editor’s note: This story is the second installment of a four-part series looking back at the year that was 2020.
In the months of April-June, San Marcos saw a tragedy with the killing of San Marcos Police Department Officer Justin Putnam. San Marcans also participated in civil-rights protests seeking justice for George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. As the summer began in 2020, COVID-19 cases began to spike.
April
On April 1, the Daily Record reported that Hays County Judge Ruben Becerra announced the county would receive 2,000 COVID-19 tests through an agreement with Reliant Immune Diagnostic’s telemedicine application MDBox. The tests, however, would become a source of contention and never became available to the county. The CHRISTUS Santa Rosa Health System completed its acquisition of Central Texas Medical Center on April 1. The hospital was also renamed to CHRISTUS Santa Rosa Hospital - San Marcos. To combat the economic hardship caused by the C
The hospital would also focus on youth and adolescent mental health needs. Different populations would be separated, with criminal offenders isolated in a secure wing.
Another goal of the facility is to reduce the stigma of mental health by making it a resource, and perhaps a gathering place, for community members.
While offering temporary stays for patients in need of more intensive or supervised care, the facility Becerra describes would include a lecture hall and also provide classes and services to the general public during the day. We have a huge, enormous level of passion and care from [me and my] office, and luckily Texas State University and all the other ones around us, Becerra said. We have an enormous amount of people that are very interested in supporting this effort.