Copperas Cove COVID-19 counts continue steady upward trend
This week, the positive confirmed cases of the COVID-19 virus have continued to increase in Copperas Cove, with a girl under 10 years of age and a woman in her 20s most recently being added to the list.
City and County numbers growing, no new local TDCJ cases
A release updating residents on the COVID-19 virus within the City of Copperas Cove was issued on Wednesday by Deputy Fire Chief/Emergency Management Coordinator Gary Young, the third such release this week.
Just this week, five new cases were added to the list as of Wednesday, bringing the total in Copperas Cove to 48. Altogether, 19 are listed as recovered from the virus and two have died.
In total, seven of the current 27 active cases in the city are hospitalized, with the remainder in isolation.
From June 1-18, there were 19 new positive confirmed cases within Coryell County, 11 of those cases being within the Copperas Cove city limits. On Thursday morning, a Fort Hood resident who lives in post housing in Coryell County was added to the numbers, with that number provided by Coryell County Emergency Management Coordinator Bob Harrell.
Coryell County has a total of 93 confirmed positive cases, with 52 of those cases having recovered.
Meanwhile, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice units located in Coryell County presently show only one active COVID-19 case in an inmate, that at the Crain Unit. All 140 inmate cases at the Murray Unit have recovered as have the 59 cases at the Woodman State Jail and eight at the Hughes Unit. The Hilltop and Mt. View units have not had any positive confirmed cases of the virus. This information is as per the TDCJ COVID-19 dashboard which is updated daily.
Including cases countywide and the TDCJ, the collective case count in Coryell is 303, according to DSHS.
Contact tracing and reporting
At the present time, Coryell County relies on the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) for contact tracing of COVID-19, and maintaining the number counts for other illnesses and infectious diseases within the local community.
At this point, other than the COVID-19 cases in Copperas Cove and the rest of Coryell County being considered community spread, it has not been released where those residents who have tested positive may have dined, shopped, or conducted business locally prior to being diagnosed.
DSHS does contact tracing and those who may have had direct contact with the positive cases are notified. However, exactly where positive cases have been prior to their diagnosis isn’t something that is automatically released publicly by DSHS.
“DSHS does not release locations where people have visited prior to diagnosis or symptom onset. In the event of a large outbreak, the location could be announced, but that decision would be made in consultation with the local health authority, emergency management coordinator and the county judge,” said Lyndsey Rosales, Communications Specialist for DSHS.
Cases elsewhere and hospital capacities
Over in Bell County, there are 658 confirmed positive cases as of noon on Wednesday. Of those cases, 292 have recovered. Killeen has seen 236 positive cases, with Temple having 34, Harker Heights with 45, Belton with 84, and elsewhere in the county 59. Bell County has seen nine deaths from the virus.
Lampasas County, which held steady at nine cases, has seen an
Texas has a total of 96,635 confirmed positive cases, with an estimated 62,368 having recovered, with an estimated 31,905 active cases. There have been 2,062 fatalities.
Wednesday, June 17, saw the largest single-day increase statewide with 3,129. However, on Monday, June 15, there were 1,254 new cases, followed by 2,622 new cases on Tuesday.
Presently, there are 2,793 in Texas hospitals with the virus. Statewide, there are 13,815 available hospital beds, 1,473 available ICU beds, and 5,844 available ventilators.
In Hospital Region L, which includes Bell, Coryell, Lampasas, Hamilton, Mills, and Milam Counties, there are presently 15 patients hospitalized with COVID-19, down from 16 on Sunday.
During a briefing on Tuesday by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Dr. John Hellerstedt, commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services, said that state officials expected an increase in patients, but “we are seeing it occurring at a manageable level.”
Gov. Abbott said that new medical strategies, treatments and additional PPE have better prepared Texas to respond to COVID-19, and that “we are better prepared to deal with COVID-19 today than we were in March and April.”
The governor recommended that people stay home, which he says is especially true for those with an underlying health condition or who are 65 and older.
He reiterated that Texans should wear masks while out in public because asymptomatic people can spread the coronavirus.
“Businesses have learned safe strategies both for their employees as well as their customers to make sure that they’re preventing the spread of COVID-19,” he said.
During a June 12 press briefing by Bell County Emergency Management, Bell County Judge David Blackburn said that the county’s three health facilities – AdventHealth in Killeen, Seton in Harker Heights, and Baylor Scott & White in Temple – all reported more than adequate capacity as of June 12 with a total of 16 COVID-19 patients in all three facilities, and that each of the facilities are above the 15 percent bed capacity as mandated by Gov. Abbott.
Central Texas COVID-19 cases*
Bell County 658 (292 recovered)
Burnet County 66 (40 recovered)
Coryell County **93 (52 recovered)
Lampasas County 13 (7 recovered)
McLennan County 196 (124 recovered)
Williamson County 1,021 (568 recovered)
*As of press time Thursday
**Not counting TDCJ - all but 1 recovered