SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg and Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff updated the community about the local response to COVID-19 in their daily briefing Monday night.
- Nirenberg reported 168 COVID-19 cases and 6 deaths in Bexar County, as of Monday. The mayor also reported 89 travel-related cases, 57 community transmission cases, 22 cases under investigation, 42 hospitalizations, 13 patients in intensive care and 11 patients on ventilators.
- Of the 168 COVID-19 patients, Mayor Nirenberg said 44 patients have made a full recovery. The virus takes 14 days total to run its course.
- A San Antonio police officer was confirmed COVID-19 positive on Monday and Nirenberg said the case is travel-related. The mayor said he believes the officer was quarantined before the infection was confirmed.
- COVID-19 community action working groups will also be formed and will focus on COVID-19 areas of impact in San Antonio, Mayor Nirenberg said. These groups will consist of city council members, county commissioners, and community leaders that will help the city combat the disease and find local, state and federal resources. Nirenberg and Wolff announced that businessman and philanthropist Gordon Hartman will serve as coordinator and manager of the working groups.
- A travel advisory for city of San Antonio staff is in effect and anyone that has traveled outside of the country or to any of the COVID-19 hotspots across the nation has been ordered to self-quarantine for 14 days, according to Mayor Nirenberg.
- Over 1,000 COVID-19 tests have been run at the federal lab at Freeman Coliseum so far, Mayor Nirenberg reported. However, the mayor and Wolff said there has been a bottleneck of data sharing in the state of Texas departments and are working to get the data to come back to San Antonio. Nirenberg said the city needs to run more tests and that’s “one of our areas of focus in the next few weeks.”
- Mayor Nirenberg said insurance won’t be a barrier if someone needs a COVID-19 test in the city of San Antonio.
- Judge Wolff announced Freeman Coliseum is being prepared to be used as an alternative care center for COVID-19 patients. The care center will house about 250 beds, is climate-controlled and secure and local leaders hope to have it ready in the next two or three days.
- Nirenberg also announced that a surveillance dashboard of COVID-19 cases in Bexar County has been set up and will be available at 7 p.m. Monday on the city’s website dedicated to the coronavirus.
Watch the entire briefing in the video player above.
San Antonio Mayor and Bexar County Judge give live, daily updates here at 6:10 p.m.
COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the new virus, stands for coronavirus disease 2019. The disease first appeared in late 2019 in Wuhan, China, but spread around the world in early 2020, causing the World Health Organization to declare a pandemic in March.
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