» Houston’s first coronavirus death reported.

Woman was posthumously tested as cases grow and city, county struggle for supplies

As the U.S. took a grim world lead in the number of known novel coronavirus cases, Houston leaders announced the city’s first death linked to the devastating pathogen in a woman who was posthumously tested when no other explanation for her passing could be found.

The woman, in her 60s, also had underlying health problems, said Dr. David Persse of the Houston Health Department. She likely contracted the virus while traveling recently outside Texas.

She died Tuesday at a local hospital. Her identity was not yet known.

“It was not an obvious cause of death,” Persse said.

The Harris County Institute of Forensic Science administered a COVID-19 test on her and results came back positive in the hours before city leaders addressed their struggles in acquiring hardto-find medical equipment. The medical examiner’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

Many municipalities, like Houston, have been unable to maintain a steady stock of protective gear, such as masks, gloves and gowns, as the number of cases increase. The U.S. on Thursday became the new global epicenter with more than 81,800 cases, a number that outranks China.

In the Houston region, the virus has spread into the ranks of local law enforcement and the Harris County’s juvenile detention center, where a teenage boy tested positive for the virus. He has been housed since late 2019 with about a dozen others at the facility.

In the moments before the death was announced, Mayor Sylvester Turner expressed dismay at the prospect of courting privately-owned suppliers for protective gear.

Before the pandemic, the city spent 50 cents per mask. Now, that price has increased exponentially with the national spike in demand, the mayor said. An attempt to purchase coveted N95 respirator masks from a vendor — at $4 each — flopped when the company revealed they had another bidder willing to pay more.

As of Thursday evening, the vendor, its winning bid and the recipient were not publicly known.

Turner said he has since approved his staff to pay $2 million up front for another cache of masks.

With a wry look, Turner told reporters he was not ready to say

whether he believed that to be price gouging.

“Let me get the masks first,” he said.

Another problem lies in the inconsistency with FEMA deliveries.

The federal agency Thursday morning shipped Harris County and Houston another round of much-needed supplies, but the anticipated shipment was not all

it seemed.

The 150 boxes that rolled off an 18-wheeler contained a lot of gloves, said George Buenik, Houston’s director of Public Safety & Homeland Security.

“We needed ice packs, gowns,” Buenik continued. “We’re hoping another additional supply can come in.”

The latest shipment will not be enough to start a second testing site, Turner said. Additionally, Buenik believes their city cache will run through Sunday.

A separate shipment to Harris

County contained a fresh supply of the test kits needed to keep drive-thru testing sites in Baytown and Katy operational, officials said. The initial delivery on March 19 of 2,500 pre-packaged nasal swabs was running low because they were being divided between the makeshift facilities, officials said. Each site can administer up to 250 tests each.

Plastic-wrapped pallets containing the equipment arrived around 8:30 a.m., about 48 hours Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo warned their supplies would reach a critical low and force testing site closures.

During a separate news conference, Umair Shah, executive director of the county’s health agency, said that he expects their supplies to last another five days. A third federal shipment will arrive in three to four days, he said.

More than 1,700 people from across the region had been tested at both sites since Monday, when the county opened its testing to community members, Shah said. He did not say how many first responders and medical professionals were tested over the weekend.

The city administered about 1,060 tests from Friday through Thursday.

Also on Thursday, Turner introduced a glimmer of goodwill toward tackling the virus’ spread. Houston businessman Farouk Shami, founder of the hair company Farouk Systems, donated 15,000 bottles of hand sanitizers that Turner said will be distributed to the city’s homeless.