COVID UPDATE: Cases up to 175 with 50 active
Total cases of COVID-19 in Milam County are up to 175 after the results of testing at the beginning of the month have come in.
Milam County Judge Steve Young said during an update during this morning’s Commissioners Court meeting that active cases sit at 50 in the county, 127 individuals are being monitored and six are in the hospital.
“I want to thank every Milam County resident for wearing a mask,” Young said. “This has been a big deal for us. We have had an order in effect for two weeks now. I was out Saturday afternoon and did not see one person who did not have a mask on. I really appreciate that.”
Young asked everyone to remember to wear a mask, social distance and have good personal hygiene to defeat this.
“It is everywhere and I want everyone to be aware of it,” he said. “We have to try to open schools in less than a month and they are going to do their best to do that. It is going to be hard and be difficult to send our children to school and keep them safe. Please head those warnings and I think each and every person in the county for wearing the masks. I am hoping to see our numbers go down if everyone continues to wear a mask.”
Milam County Health Department Director Robert Kirkpatrick reminded everyone that if the county contacts you for an interview due to a positive case you are asked to share as much information as you can with the health department.
“Hiding people does not help us with our purpose,” he said. “We want to help reduce the spread of the virus. We aren’t trying to place blame on anyone. We want to keep everyone healthy and not expose anyone to the virus.”
Kirkpatrick said the Health Department received the results from the mobile testing in late June and early July late Friday evening and that they have contacted all but three of the people because they gave bad contact information.
He said the people that tested positive were notified by the state within two days, but it takes 10 days to get results from the state to the health department. Twenty-four of those tested were positive.
Young said during the meeting that Precinct 1 Commissioner Opey Watkins was not in attendance because he was still in quarantine, but doing fine. He tested negative for the virus.
The Milam County Clerk’s Office is also closed due to staff members being in quarantine.
“We are not closed completely,” County Clerk Jodi Morgan said. “I do have staff members in quarantine. I just have minimum staff on hand to work with the public. Locking the door is what we had to do. We are processing, but staff is smaller and it is taking some time. We will reopen Monday if everybody is able to come back into the office.”
Milam County Emergency Management Director Bryan Burns said that to date his department has given out about 60,000+ masks in Milam County. They have visited about 100 businesses in the county.
If you need masks please contact Burns at (254) 697-7000.
He said he is working on getting more tests for the county and there will be another option for mobile testing in early August.