SAN PATRICIO COUNTY, Texas — In an effort to reduce interactions with confirmed COVID-19 patients or potentially ill residents, the San Patricio County Health Department is going a more traditional route in notifying residents that they must quarantine: mail.
So, what's different? According to Dr. James Mobley, the health authority for San Patricio County, previously, notices were being delivered in-person by a representative from the sheriff's office.
"But as we’ve had the increase in the number of cases and all it’s been a burden on everyone," Mobley said. "So, we’re going to start using mail. What we will do is now mail the information, and we actually established a phone line for people to call in and acknowledge that they received it, and also give us further information that we need. And once it’s their release time, we will also send them a registered and regular mail to tell them they’re released, so it should work a lot more efficiently, and not have someone knocking on their door all the time.”
If you receive that notice from the county's heath department, Mobley is urging residents to respond as soon as they can with that phone line provided, because otherwise, someone will need to deliver that notice in-person.
According to Mobley, there does not appear at this time to be a specific hot spot for the virus in the county, but there are some communities who are appearing to report less cases.
"If I see a town that has a number of cases then we’ll go ahead and look at the streets and see if there seems to be a pocket that seems to be developing," Mobley said. "So far we have not seen that. A little bit lighter on the area toward the coast interestingly enough. Ingleside and Aransas Pass have cases, but seem to be a little lighter than the rest of the county. Some people have said, 'is it possible the salt air protects against COVID?' I really don’t think so, but we are seeing a little bit lighter there."
When asked if the growing number of cases will ever lead to a point in time where county officials would release cases by zip codes as we're seeing in Nueces and larger counties:
"I don’t think we’ll ever be there," Mobley said. "Basically, you really can’t go below zip codes and again, so many of these towns are small, and we’ve had some very unfortunate events. I think we’re probably just going to stick to the overall numbers, unless we see some kind of hot spot where we’re going to have to take a specific action or something like that."
As far as certain businesses or establishments that do not appear to be following the Governor's statewide mask order, Mobley says report it:
“My recommendation, at least in my county, would be to report it to the health department and we’ll send it to one of our inspectors out to talk to the manager and all. We really like to be a helping agency as much as possible. We’ll educate and help along, but if nothing else works we’ll take other action.”
As far as testing, Mobley acknowledged there is a great need for more throughout the county. He said his office put in a request to the state department on Monday for more testing capabilities and resources, and that he's expecting an update over the weekend or early next week regarding more testing.
“The last times we had them here was probably a week and a half ago and they were completely overwhelmed. Ran out of material, lines out the door that kinda thing. A lot of people want to get tested, and I understand," Mobley said. "My advice is that if they’re feeling sick, contact - either go to the emergency room or contact their health care provider right away. If they’re feeling well, I’m not sure how much it’s worthwhile getting tested because if they’re positive, but feeling well, I will quarantine them. Even though they’re feeling fine, they’ll be home for 14 days.”
Daily updates on the spread of COVID-19 in San Patricio County are shared here:
COVID-19 call center: 361-201-0551, operated M-F 8 a.m. - 5 p.m.
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