1,283 new cases; five deaths
Mayor says San Antonio must be prepared for coronavirus infection rate to get worse
The coronavirus remains a dire threat in San Antonio and Bexar County just days before Christmas with the virus accounting for nearly a quarter of all local hospitalizations, officials said Monday.
Of all the patients in San Antonio hospitals, 23.2 percent are sick with the virus. That’s up from 19.9 percent one week ago and from 16 percent two weeks ago.
The positivity rate — the percentage of tests coming back positive for the virus — is 14.4 percent. That’s an increase of 1.9 percentage points from the previous week, when the positivity rate stood at 12.5 percent.
San Antonio’s COVID-19 case rate is 51.2 cases per 100,000 people, up slightly from a week ago.
The city must be prepared for the virus to get worse, Mayor Ron Nirenberg said Monday.
“The stress on our hospital system continues to increase,” he said. The community’s risk level remains moderate, but worsening, he added.
“We need to do everything we can to slow the infection rate down and slow the stress on our hospitals,” Nirenberg said.
“It’s going to be a difficult, challenging winter for everyone in the community, especially our health care workers. And so keep that in mind as you flout the risks, if you’re thinking about it, because there are a lot of people who will have to live with the consequences of your decisions for better or for worse.”
It’s hard to predict when the city may reach a plateau because the number of cases is still rising, said Rita Espinoza, chief epidemiologist at the San Antonio Metropolitan Health District.
“It’d probably be six to eight more weeks of increase, especially if individuals don’t take the precautions that are necessary to protect themselves and their families and friends,” Espinoza said Monday.
If that proves to be correct, it would mean the number of COVID-19 cases may not plateau until February, Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff said.
“Everybody thought that vaccines get here in December, the world’s going to be OK. Doesn’t look that way,” he said.
The judge delivered a direct message to people in their 20s, who account for 21.5 percent of all
Bexar County residents who have contracted the virus since the pandemic began more than nine months ago.
“They’re young, they’re strong, they’re probably going to be OK,” Wolff said of people in that age group. “But they can bring (COVID-19) home and cause a very, very serious illness for their parents, their grandparents and any older person. So all I’d say to that group is be extremely careful.”
City and county officials announced 1,283 newly diagnosed cases on Monday. The rolling 7day average for new cases has increased to 1,123 per day.
Officials also announced five more deaths of Bexar County residents who contracted the virus. They include two Hispanic men in their 40s, one who died at home and the other who died at PAM Specialty Hospital; a Hispanic man in his 50s who died at Meth
odist Hospital; a black woman in her 80s who died at home; and a Hispanic woman in her 90s who died at Northeast Methodist Hospital.
All of them died in the past 14 days.
A total of 889 patients sick with the virus were being cared for in San Antonio hospitals Monday —
an increase of 23 from the day before. That includes eight patients from El Paso, where hospitals have been pushed to maximum capacity.
Among those hospitalized, 109 were admitted in the past 24 hours, city officials said.
Nearly a third of the hospitalized patients — 286 people — are housed in intensive care units, while 146 are on ventilators to help them breathe.
Some 14 percent of staffed hospital beds remain available, while 56 percent of ventilators are in stock and ready for use.
Wolff said the virus is getting worse in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. He predicted conditions could become more serious than they did last summer if the trend doesn’t turn around.
“I didn’t expect it to get this bad, I must tell you,” Wolff said. “And I know it’s going to get worse. We ran into Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas coming, New Year’s coming. We literally have tens of thousands of people out there shopping ... so I think that’s part of it, probably.
“Take extra precautions over these next several days or (come) January, we’re going to be in really serious trouble.”
Since the pandemic emerged in March, 103,447 Bexar County residents have tested positive for the virus and 1,460 of them have died. An additional 170 deaths are still being investigated by Metro Health.
In Comal County, public health officials reported 76 new cases Monday, most of them in New Braunfels. Since March, 5,760 residents have tested positive for the virus and 141 of them have died. The latter figure includes five deaths announced in the past week.
Comal County has 773 active cases of the coronavirus, public health officials said Monday. Among them are 40 patients who are hospitalized.
Comal County’s seven-day molecular positivity rate stood at 17.13 percent on Monday — up from 13.89 percent on Friday. Meanwhile, the county’s seven-day antigen positivity rate stood at 17.92 percent, up slightly from 17.22 percent.
So far, 84 percent of Comal County residents who contracted the virus have recovered. That amounts to 4,846 recoveries.