Titus COVID outbreak now over 200

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  • Pilgrim's Prepared Poultry Products/ Google Earth
    Pilgrim's Prepared Poultry Products/ Google Earth
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Hopkins should not be affected, emergency management says

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An outbreak of COVID-19 in Titus County should not affect Hopkins County if proper distancing and sanitation measures are followed, according to the Hopkins County emergency management team. 

As of noon Friday, May 22, Titus County Judge Brian Lee updated his social media to reflect that Titus County confirmed additional cases of COVID-19 overnight, for a total of 248 total cases, and two deaths. 

These numbers do not include test results from nursing homes or Pilgrim’s [Prepared Poultry Products] from tests performed Sunday, Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday,” Lee wrote. “[There is a] significant connection to [Pilgrim’s] poultry plant, but [there are] other industry/plant connections are included as well.”

According to Lee in previous news releases, these new cases did not come from recent openings of businesses throughout the county.

“The numbers have been slowly building behind the scenes in a variety of locations like crowded workplaces, homes and carpools. We can’t ever be sure because so many people have few or no symptoms,” he said.

Lee said that “there is a strong correlation to our poultry plant. Plant officials continue to be proactive in finding ways to deal with this.”

JBS (Pilgrim’s Pride) announced in a statement that they will be offering COVID-19 testing to their Mount Pleasant employees. The testing is voluntary, not mandatory, according to the release. 

“We’ll be offering testing for employees at the Pilgrim’s Mt. Pleasant complex,” the statement read. “We are all in this together, and we’ll do everything we can to keep our community safe.”

“The management at Pilgrim’s is strongly encouraging that everybody participate,” Lee said.

In Gov. Greg Abbott’s May 18 press conference regarding Phase II of reopening the state, he specifically noted that meat processing plants, in addition to jails and nursing homes, were “hotspots” for transmission of COVID-19 where the state intended to perform “thousands” of tests. 

Lee has been using his personal Facebook page to share anonymous stories of those in his county affected with COVID-19. Several have discussed their employment at Titus County plants. 

It all began at my plant-based job here in Mount Pleasant Texas,” wrote one infected Titus County citizen. “Who would have thought?... I had been in contact with so many people… close people to me that I exposed have tested and came back positive with the virus as well… All these essential workers are now exposed and bringing it back to there [sic] families without them even knowing.” 

“It was [these] two women had [a] fever of 100.4 or more and they sent them to the hospital for more studies,” said another infected Titus County citizen. “The first shift stopped the production at 10 a.m. in [the] Carthage, Texas Tyson plant and they just threw sanitizer and rinse[d] it out [and] we started shift at 3:40 p.m. on Monday. They gave notice that the two women they had come positive from COVID-19.” 

“That same night, at the end of my shift, I left with a terrible headache,” said the infected citizen. “I returned to work on Tuesday and Wednesday [and] on Thursday.” 

By Saturday, the citizen received a confirmation of the COVID-19 virus. 

While Titus’s numbers have risen, Hopkins County’s numbers have not risen as sharply, according to Hopkins County emergency management. Within the 24-hour period from  2 p.m., May 19 to 1:45 p.m., May 20, Hopkins County was notified of five new confirmed COVID-19 cases. According to emergency management, this can be associated with the robustness of new testing. 

“Hopkins County is doing well, and our hospital is open and has beds available,” said county judge Robert Newsom. “It’s open for business and there’s plenty of room.”

According to Newsom, the county’s first concern in a pandemic would be lack of hospital availability. So far, that has not materialized, he said. 

“If our citizens are sick, they have a place to go. Our hospital is ready to serve anyone.” 

Furthermore, says emergency management coordinator Andy Endsley, Hopkins is doing “very well compared to the counties surrounding us,” especially, according to Endsley, taking population density into account. When compared to similarly population dense Wood County with 22 cumulative cases and one death, Hopkins has 13 cumulative cases and no deaths. 

“We’ve been very blessed in our numbers and I think we’ve been doing well,” Endsley said. “I think we’ve got to continue to encourage everyone to practice distancing.” 

Miranda Oglesby of the Mount Pleasant Tribune contributed to this report. 

This story has been updated to reflect increased cases and an additional death between Thursday and Friday.