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Hopkins County total COVID curve/ Courtesy Hopkins County EOC
Hospital expands to make room for COVID hospitalized
COVID-19 numbers are on the rise as the hospital creates additional space for hospitalized patients and nursing home deaths are on the rise, yet the county will be given less information than before, according to Hopkins County Emergency Management.
Hopkins County now has 51 deaths related to COVID-19, according to the state of Texas. Sulphur Springs police chief Jason Ricketson confirmed that “those deaths would be in the nursing homes” in a Nov. 24 press conference.
While the CHRISTUS Mother Frances Sulphur Springs Hospital originally slated 20 beds in its COVID-19 care ward, with 24 patients as of Tuesday, it expanded the number of available beds for COVID-19 patients to 35, emergency management confirmed.
Despite this, the state will now stop communicating the addresses of COVID-positive cases to the emergency management team, beginning Nov. 22. While the addresses will still be provided to the Local Health Authority for possible contact tracing, the emergency management team will be provided with data analysis once per week only.
Ricketson stated he sees the provision as positive, as the state previously provided “very little” data analysis and breakdowns of age range or gender distribution of cases was done by the emergency team themselves.
“We’re just kind of letting them do that, because once it [tests] go out, it’s out of our hands,” noted Hopkins County fire marshal and emergency management coordinator Andy Endsley.
“We ask that you bear with us,” Ricketson said. “The information we’re giving you is the information the state is giving us, and we no longer have a lot of insight or oversight… maybe in the future, that will change. As of right now, we can only give you the information we’re given.”
As of 2 p.m. on Nov. 24, Hopkins County has 800 cumulative cases, 691 recoveries, 58 active cases and 51 deaths, according to Hopkins County Emergency Management.