COVID-19 restrictions back in Guadalupe County

COVID-19 restrictions back in Guadalupe County Main Photo

30 Dec 2020


Covid19, Guadalupe County

Seguin, TX, USA / Seguin Today

Darren Dunn

 

(Seguin) — Additional COVID-19 restrictions are back in place for some local businesses, because the hospitalization rate has gone up in this region. This means that restaurants will again have to reduce their capacity, and it could also force some bars to close completely.

Bryce Houlton, Guadalupe County Assistant Emergency Management Coordinator, delivered the news during Tuesday’s meeting of the Guadalupe County Commissioners Court. Houlton says the number of positive COVID-19 cases is again on the rise.

“As of (Tuesday) morning, (the) confirmed active cases in New Braunfels (was) 18, 42 in Cibolo, 50 in Seguin, 30 in Schertz, three in Marion, one in Selma and 81 in the unincorporated areas — for a confirmed active total of 225. Our office has been seeing between 300 and 375 cases a day coming into our office. That’s between new cases and recovered cases. It seems like the state is constantly doing dumps of data that they find through Texas Health Traces. So we are still seeing those. We haven’t seen anything from Christmas yet, but we are expecting to see an increase in numbers from there,” said Houlton.

The positive case count isn’t the only number on the rise. Hospilizations are also up at Guadalupe Regional Medical Center in Seguin and at most other medical facilities in the region.

“They actually have 35 patients in the hospital right now. The deaths (reported) still stayed the same at 37 at GRMC, and the total deaths in the county is still at 48. DSHS (Department of State Health Services) on their website — is now showing 100 deaths for Guadalupe County,” says Houlton.

Hospitalization numbers aren’t just up in Guadalupe County, but most of the counties that make up Trauma Service Area (TSA) “P” — which includes places like Bexar and Comal counties. They all have had more COVID-19 patients over the last week or so. Houlton says hospitalizations in our TSA have gone up to a level that triggers more restrictions from the governor’s office.

“His executive order No. 32 outlines if a Trauma Service Area has 15 percent or more COVID cases in their hospitals for seven consecutive days — his executive order goes back into effect. We’ll get into the details in a moment of what exactly that means. But just showing you the seven day totals, including (Monday’s) numbers, you can see on Dec. 21 we were at 15.3 (percent) and we went up and down a little bit all the way until (Monday) when we were at an even 16 percent. So we are above that 15 percent threshold,” said Houlton.

It’s definitely going to limit the capacity in restaurants and some retail establishments. They will not be forced to close, but they will need to keep a closer eye on the number of customers that they allow inside at one time.

“All the establishments that were operating at 75 percent, now must go to 50 percent. And we have a list of what those (businesses) are — retail establishments, restaurants, office buildings, manufacturing, museums and libraries, and gyms and other exercise facilities,” said Houlton.

Comal County officials announced earlier this week that it was shutting down bars, but that’s also true in Guadalupe County for places that only serve drinks. Houlton says most local bars have already added food to their establishment, which will allow them to continue to operate at this time. But bars that don’t serve food, will have to close effective immediately.

“If the bar has not transferred to a restaurant — if they are not serving some kind of food…I think as long as some kind of food is being sold, (it meets the definition of restaurant. If not), bars must close as well.

Houlton says most other operations will still be allowed, these additional restrictions are just a part of a governor’s order from months ago, and it was only activated because the hospitalization rates got so high.

“There is still no occupancy limit on critical infrastructure, religious services, government, child care, schools, and drive-in concerts and movies or similar events. There’s also no occupancy limit in certain establishments as long as they are maintaining six fee of social distancing, which includes hair salons, barber shops, nail salons, massage establishments and any kind of tattoo services,” said Houlton.

Guadalupe County Judge Kyle Kutscher says it’s unfortunate that these restrictions have to be put back into place, but he says they will continue to do all that they can to help to support local businesses.

“Everybody is in the same situation. It’s a little bit frustrating and upsetting that we are seeing COVID numbers increase and moreover the hospitalization rate increase to a point where now the governor’s orders and restrictions come into play. We all know, as the cities and the county,that the business owners have been greatly impacted, some to detrimental level. They’ve just been hurt financially for a long time,” said Kutscher.

The county is not looking to play gotcha when it comes to enforcing these restrictions. Judge Kutscher says they will adhere to the governor’s orders, while also doing all that they can to help the business community at this difficult time.

“It’s unfortunate that these restrictions have to be put in place on businesses, like bars where they have to close down or restaurants that have to restrict occupancy and capacity. At the same point, we’ve got a great business community. We’ve got great partners with the cities. We are all going to set out as a team to educate, as opposed to enforce rules and restrictions on these businesses. We are going to support them and try to keep them open as much as possible, while also still complying with state guidelines. We’ve been really consistent as a county and as a city consortium — as a group — to try to be very level headed in our approach to taking state guidelines and standards and saying ‘this is what we are going to operate within.’ As opposed to putting more restrictions on, like other areas did around the state,” said Kutscher.

While the business community deals with more restrictions, Kutscher says that he hopes that the public will continue to do all that it can to try to limit the spread of the disease and hopefully reduce the number of hospitalizations and deaths that occur here locally.

“The hospital, early on, kind of forecasted and anticipated the increased number of COVID cases and hospitalizations through mid-January. I know the holidays are still upon us. I want everybody to be mindful that we are seeing a lot of cases of some (large) gatherings, but (mostly) it’s just people simply visiting family and coming into contact with somebody or becoming positive themselves. Everybody just be careful. Everybody knows what to do,” said Kutscher.

Precinct 4 Commissioner Judy Cope encouraged people to continue to wear their masks and to practice social distancing whenever they can. She says the numbers were getting better for a while, and that likely lead us to become a bit more complacent. She says we all have to take personal responsibility for ourselves during this pandemic, and also take steps to help keep us from potentially spreading the virus to others.

 

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