11 more dead; 1,108 new cases reported

Mayor warns San Antonians: Stay safe and wear your mask if you have to leave home

Another 11 people with COVID-19 have died, including a longtime San Antonio Fire Department mechanic and a seasonal security guard at the Alamodome.

“The pandemic has tested our city’s resolve over the last few months, but today it hit especially close to home,” said City Manager Erik Walsh. “We are grieving the loss of two of our own City of San Antonio teammates.”

A statement from the city about the two deaths stated that Hector Rodriguez, the SAFD mechanic, had worked with the city for 29 years and the temporary security guard, whose name was not given, had worked seasonally for the city since 2006.

“Let’s honor their lives by protecting ourselves, our loved ones & our neighbors,” Mayor Ron Nirenberg said in a social media post Saturday mourning the loss of the two city employees, the first reported publicly. “Stay home & stay safe. Wear your mask if you have to leave home. Wash your hands. Thank you.”

Of the 11 victims, two died at home — one a woman in her 70s and one a white man in his 20s — and a third was a white woman in her 90s who died in hospice at Brookdale. Another was a Black man in his 90s who was a resident of Huebner Creek Health & Rehabilitation Center who had been moved to the River City nursing home. All but the man in his 20s had underlying health conditions. A Hispanic man in his 60s with unknown medical conditions died at Stone Oak Methodist.

A woman in her 40s and a man in his 60s died at University

Health System; their race/ethnicity wasn’t provided but both had underlying health conditions. A man in his 80s, two women in their 70s and another man in his 50s — race/ethnicity not listed — died at North Central Baptist. All but the man in his 50s had underlying health conditions.

The death toll in Bexar County now stands at 251.

The figures updated by Metro Health on Saturday also showed 1,108 new cases of novel coronavi

rus, increasing the total in Bexar to 28,633.

Hospitalizations continued to improve, however, with 1,144 people with COVID-19 in San Antonio hospitals, 22 fewer patients than on Friday. That makes five straight days with fewer people in the hospital with the virus.

The number of the people with the deadly disease in intensive care and on ventilators also declined slightly on Saturday; the figures showed 426 in intensive care, down by 10 pa

tients from 436 on Friday, and 293 people were on ventilators to help them breathe, down from 298 on Friday.

Metro Health reported 419 staffed hospital beds were available Saturday, 11 percent of the countywide capacity.

The number of hospitalizations has begun to level off in Bexar County in recent days, but deaths from COVID-19 have accelerated locally and statewide.

After Bexar County reported its first death from COVID-19 on Mar. 22, it took more than three months for the county to surpass 100 deaths. In just the last 10 days, however, 105 county

residents have died from the disease.

Statewide, 10,158 new cases of COVID-19 were reported Saturday and 130 deaths, bringing the statewide death toll to 3,865.

Over the last week, Texas has averaged 108 deaths from COVID-19 per day. That’s up from an average of 72 deaths per day last week, and 35 per day the week before.

Area report

In neighboring Comal County, two more COVID-19 deaths were reported Saturday. Both were women in their 90s with underlying conditions. One was a resident of the Heights of Bulverde nursing home, where she died Thursday, and the second was a resident at Colonial Manor nursing home in New Braunfels, where she died Friday.

There have now been eight residents of Heights of Bulverde who have died with novel coronavirus and three residents of Colonial Manor who have died with the virus.

County health officials reported 109 new cases Saturday, increasing the total to 1,667 since the pandemic started. Most of the new cases are from the New Braunfels area; 44 are younger than 30.