HARLINGEN, Texas - The dean of the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley School of Medicine has issued a warning to those venturing out following the ending of the coronavirus lockdown in Texas.
Dr. John H. Krouse was a special guest on a webinar about COVID-19 hosted by the Rio Grande Valley Partnership, the Valley’s regional chamber of commerce.
“People need to be careful when they go back into the public. Social distancing is going to be the order for the next month, the next number of months. I think they should avoid large crowds or gatherings,” Krouse said.
“They should not be going crowds of more than seven or eight people, They should wear masks in public. I think the data are suggesting that masks in public are helpful. I would certainly encourage them to do that.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has allowed his stay-at-home order to lapse. However, he has struck a cautious note by saying retail stores, restaurants and shopping malls can only operate at 25 percent capacity.
Some stores have said they will stay closed for a few more weeks in order to protect their staff from the virus. La Plaza Mall in McAllen is opening up again but many of its shoppers come from Mexico and there is still a restriction in place stopping Mexican visa holders from crossing into the United States.
Speaking about the opening up of the Valley economy, Krouse said:
“People should begin to be comfortable going out again but they are going to have to practice good public health practices. We have been very fortunate in the Valley. The number of cases in the Valley has been low as a ratio of the population as compared to many parts of the country. That has been from early action, good care from our people, people have been listening to their elected officials, the elected officials took action early. We do not want to lose the benefit.”
Krouse said he appreciates the need for the economy to rebound and that can only happen if people are free to go to work.
“We want people to get back into doing their daily activities and to their occupations. But, again, I would advice that family, just be careful when you are going out. Practice social distancing, don’t do anything that is foolish.”
RGVP President Sergio Contreras asked Krouse about the importance of testing people for the coronavirus. Krouse responded:
“I agree that what we need to do, first of all, right today, is in those areas where we want to critically get people to work, we should be able to be testing them, doing the diagnostic testing, the RNA testing that we have been doing.”
Krouse said UTRGV SOM has been asked by Hidalgo County to begin to test healthcare workers and those that work in nursing homes.
“We can test those people upfront, make sure they are not infected, and we can get those people back to work, and we can do that in a safer way. In addition, if we do find some of those that are positive, we can isolate them and do appropriate contact tracing.”
Krouse said having a large academic university like UTRGV has helped during this time of crisis.
“One of the concepts early on was the importance of doing testing, the importance of being able to screen people who were symptomatic, to see if they were positive for COVID-19 novel coronavirus, and then to recommend isolation and treatment as needed,” he said.
“One of the advantages of having a large academic university in the the Valley is not only do we have the clinical arm that is able to go out and do the testing and treatment that is needed, we have the laboratories, we have the scientists at the university that are able to conduct the testing.”
Krouse noted that UT Health has four testing sites operating in the Valley. They are in Edinburg, Brownsville, Mercedes and Harlingen.
“In the next week or so we should be able to do 500 or more tests a day with a 12-hour turnaround on those tests. That is really where we need to get to if we are going to re-open, if we are going to get people back to work, which is so critical,” Krouse said.
“At this point, we need to, first of all, be able to test anyone who needs testing, and we are going to be there in the next week or so. But then we have to be able to trace all of those positives.”
Krouse said contract tracing is going to be crucial also, making sure health officials can trace those who have come into contact with those that have the virus.
“As the governor said yesterday, we need to have four to five times the number of individuals doing contact tracing than do now. So, we are working with our county health departments, we are working with the state health departments see how we can leverage more of our resources at the university to help with contact tracing. Because, if we are going to get people back to work, testing needs to be available, isolation, track down these people that are symptomatic and really take care of those.”
Editor’s Note: The other special guest on the RGVP webinar was UTRGV President Guy Bailey. We will have a story on his analysis in a future edition.
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