Hospital administrator reflects on lessons learned one year after first confirmed COVID-19 case in Houston area Tags: FORT BEND COUNTY – A year ago Thursday, the first confirmed case of COVID-19 was reported in Fort Bend County. It was not only the first in the Houston area but the entire state of Texas. The patient was a man in his 70s who survived after contracting the virus on a cruise ship in Egypt. “At that time, we didn’t know how deadly it would be,” said Joe Freudenberger, CEO of Oak Bend Medical Center in Richmond in Fort Bend County. Freudenberger said there were so many unknowns a year ago, complicated by rapidly changing guidelines and even politics.