Local coronavirus cases continue to climb
The number of coronavirus patients admitted to San Antonio hospitals hit a daily record Tuesday, as Bexar County added more than 2,000 COVID-19 cases within the past two days.
Local hospitals admitted 157 new virus patients, Metro Health reported Tuesday, the most in one day since city health officials started tracking daily admissions.
The total number of people hospitalized with the virus climbed to 1,116 Tuesday — the most since the summer surge. Hospitalizations peaked at 1,267 on July 13, the high-water mark of the entire pandemic — so far.
Given the rate of new admissions, city and county leaders expect to surpass that record soon.
“It looks pretty clear we’re going to go beyond that,” Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff said at the daily city-county coronavirus briefing Tuesday.
The number of patients in need of critical care also is growing.
Those in intensive care units rose to 314 Tuesday from 299 Monday — while those on ventilators to help them breathe grew to 170 from 164 the previous day.
Eleven more people have died of COVID-19. The oldest was a Hispanic woman in her 90s. The youngest were two men in their 60s — one was Hispanic, the other Anglo.
San Antonio added 975 new
COVID-19 cases Tuesday.
Officials also reported the total number of new coronavirus cases Monday was 1,126. The full number wasn’t reported Monday, owing to a problem in downloading test results from the state health department.
The seven-day average of new cases climbed to 1,165 from 1,116 on Monday.
Health officials don’t expect to begin seeing whether there was increased spread of the virus as a result of the Christmas holiday weekend until next week. It takes at least five days from exposure to someone with COVID-19 before an infection shows up on a test result.
Local leaders urged residents not to become complacent — especially because a potentially more contagious strain of the virus was detected in the United States on Tuesday.
Health officials in Colorado confirmed the country’s first case of the strain — the one spotted in the United Kingdom, where preliminary research has shown it may be up to 70 percent more transmissible than other versions of the virus.
Though the strain may be different, the tools to reduce its spread remain the same as they’ve been throughout the pandemic: wear masks, keep at least 6 feet of social distance from others and wash your hands.
“The last thing we should do is to assume that it’s not here,” Mayor Ron Nirenberg said. “We should just assume that it is and that we should continue to take those precautions that the public health professionals have been telling us.”
Meanwhile, Texas health officials prodded health care providers to pick up the pace when it comes to doling out vaccines. A “significant portion” of the state’s vaccine supply has not been administered to health care workers, first responders and nursing home residents, Dr. John Hellerstedt, commissioner of the Department of State Health Services, wrote in a Dec. 24 letter that Gov. Greg Abbott mentioned on his Twitter feed Tuesday.
About three-fifths of the 51,000 doses sent to Bexar County have been administered so far, amounting to more than 31,000, Nirenberg said — ahead of the 12,000 listed on the state’s vaccine dashboard.
Nirenberg and Wolff noted there are about 145,000 people in the county who fall under the state’s first tier of those prioritized to get the vaccine. Vaccinating all of them will take time, they said.
“We want them all administered,” Nirenberg said. “We’re not there but we are doing quite well.”
Residents have stood in long lines this week to get tested for the virus after the Christmas holiday weekend. The city’s free testing sites will operate on a modified schedule over the New Year’s weekend.
Free testing at Cuellar Community Center and Ramirez Community Center will be closed to those who aren’t showing coronavirus symptoms. Those sites will be open for those with symptoms 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday, closed Friday and open again Saturday.
Those who aren’t showing symptoms can be tested at the AT&T Center from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday. But asymptomatic testing there will be closed Friday through Sunday.
Testing at Freeman Coliseum, which requires an appointment, will be closed Friday.
For a complete list of testing sites, visit the city’s website at covid19.sanantonio.gov.
Local residents have been standing in long lines this week to get tested for the coronavirus in the wake of the Christmas holiday weekend. The city’s free testing sites will operate on a modified schedule over the New Year’s weekend.