Falls County reaches double digit COVID-19 cases

Falls County has seen nearly a 50 percent increase in coronavirus cases within the last week. 

The county had been sitting at six cases for a couple weeks, but on Saturday, May 30, officials were notified that there was a seventh case. On Tuesday, June 2, it was announced by Falls County that there had been two additional cases, bringing the total to nine positive cases.  

On June 5, it was announced that there were two more cases, taking the total to 11 county-wide positive coronavirus cases. Overall, there were five new cases in the span of eight days. 

Of those five cases, four are from the east side of the Brazos River, while only one is from the west side of the river. 

“No personal information about a COVID-19 patient will be given out from the county,” stated the press release.

According to Jay Elliott, Falls County Judge, giving out additional information would violate a number of HIPPA laws, though surrounding counties have gone as far as to give out names of individuals and the places an infected individual has been in the weeks prior to testing.

According to Title 45 of the Code of Federal Regulations, subsection 164.512, “a covered entity may disclose protected health information to persons at risk of contracting or spreading a disease or condition if other law, such as state law, authorizes the covered entity to notify such persons as necessary to prevent or control the spread of the disease or otherwise to carry out public health interventions or investigations.”

In relation to COVID-19, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Civil Rights Office has stated that “HIPAA expressly defers to the professional judgment of health professionals in making determinations about the nature and severity of the threat to health and safety” in their HIPAA Privacy and Novel Coronavirus Bulletin, released in February of 2020. This means that because Falls County does not have a health department, the release of information is at the discretion of county officials, along with the Local Health Authority, Dr. Karlan Downing.

After Governor Greg Abbott’s mandate to test all individuals involved with nursing homes, Falls County screened individuals at both Golden Years Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Marlin and Heritage House Nursing and Rehabilitation in Rosebud.

“In the big scheme, the more testing we do, you can expect more cases,” Elliott said during a Commissioners Court meeting on June 8. “We did the testing over at the nursing homes and that went well.”

In that meeting, it was also announced that Falls County has been authorized for more than $99,000 through the Cares Act. The Cares Act bases the numerical amounts given to state and local governments through population assessments. 

The CARES Act requires that the payments from the Coronavirus Relief Fund only be used to cover expenses that 1) are necessary expenditures incurred due to the public health emergency with respect to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID–19); 2) were not accounted for in the budget most recently approved as of March 27, 2020 (the date of enactment of the CARES Act) for the State or government; and 3) were incurred during the period that begins on March 1, 2020, and ends on December 30, 2020, accounting to the U.S. treasury. Funds have not been received, but should be obtained in the coming weeks. 

Falls County citizens are encouraged to continue following the social distancing measure set forth by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, found at https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/social-distancing.html. More information on the novel coronavirus and how to protect yourself from it can be found at coronavirus.gov.