San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Rounding up the flock.
No new deaths related to COVID-19 were reported Saturday, and the percentage of positive test results continues to drop, Mayor Ron Nirenberg said.
“The data is trending very well,” Nirenberg said.
The mayor said indicators are showing that the San Antonio area is continuing to improve, including a decrease in the number of days it takes for the number of new novel coronavirus cases to double.
“When this onset first happened, we were doubling the number of infections once every three days. Now we are once every four weeks, which is extraordinary for this community, for the size of our city,” he said. “So that’s very, very good.”
He added that last week, the positivity rate —the percentage of tests that show the person is positive for the virus — was 4.3 percent, down 1.4 percentage points when compared with the previous week. Overall, the positivity rate since the pandemic began in San Antonio stands at 5.5 percent, he said.
Nirenberg said more than 40,000 people have been tested for the virus in San Antonio since the onset of the pandemic.
The city this past week offered free walk-up testing at two East Side community centers. Nirenberg said the city will be operating a mobile testing site at a new location this week.
The number of new positive cases was not available Saturday as the Metropolitan Health District data team took well-deserved time off, Nirenberg said.
He said other indicators watched by health officials also are trending well, including those that show possible stress on the community’s health system, among them the availability of hospital beds and ventilators.
The number of people in the hospital with COVID-19 dropped from 70 Friday to 66 Saturday. More significantly, Nirenberg said, those on ventilators dropped from
25 to 14; with no new deaths reported, that indicates people are recovering from the disease. The number of people in intensive care also decreased, from 34 to 29. That all leaves 78 percent of ventilators and 31 percent of hospital beds available citywide, he said.
Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff said the county jail also is seeing improvement.
“We have now tested 1,500 inmates in the jail,” he said. “There’s nobody in the hospital, only 15 in the infirmary and no new cases today.”
He said that of those tested, 392 were found to have the virus. And of those, 319 showed no symptoms.
Wolff said he’s expecting that Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday will announce that gyms and possibly bars will be allowed to reopen under some restrictions this week.
He also said he expects Abbott to announce that Texas schools will reopen for the fall semester. Abbott may allow professional sports to take place in Texas, as well, though without fans, Wolff said.
“It’s going to be an important day Monday,” Wolff said.
Veronica Soto, director of the city’s Neighborhood and Housing Services Department, said the city has processed 7,300 applications for aid from the city’s $25 million emergency assistance fund. She said around half of the pot of money is left.
“Those folks that do have economic difficulties making the rent, making their mortgage, we do have those programs available,” Soto said, adding that residents in need should call 311.
City and county leaders in recent weeks have said a top goal for the post-pandemic recovery will involve worker training programs to provide job opportunities to the tens of thousands of unemployed workers in the county.
Wolff said the county’s plan would primarily target laid-off workers from the hospitality and service industries.
Nirenberg said the city will unveil its own workforce development plan this week.
“There’s already some good discussions underway about making sure that we not only get people back to work, but we also make sure they’re trained up for the long term,” Nirenberg said.
U.S. House Democrats passed the HEROES Act on Friday, an additional spending bill that would send $29 billion to state and local governments in Texas to offset the massive revenue shortfalls hitting municipalities across the state.
The bill, which Senate Republicans have said is “dead on arrival,” includes about $1 billion for San Antonio.
Wolff acknowledged that the bill as is won’t likely become law but said it was a good starting point for congressional negotiations.
“If we did get that funding in some form or fashion, it would really set us up to get healthier financially and to get businesses going quicker,” he said.