Williamson County is waiting on test results for first responders who believe they were exposed to the coronavirus, County Judge Bill Gravell said at a news conference Wednesday.
Gravell didn’t say how many first responders were tested after the county received 1,000 testing kits on Monday, which were ordered from a lab in Georgia. The county had previously reported a dire shortage of testing kits, likely resulting in many cases of the virus going unreported.
Williamson County is now receiving 500 new test kits daily from the Georgia lab, which the city of Austin and Bastrop County are also employing, Gravell said Wednesday.
Williamson County has 97 confirmed coronavirus cases as of Wednesday. Those include four people who have died from the virus. The cases also include 13 people currently on ventilators, Gravell said.
A nursing home in Round Rock has also accepted three Travis County patients who tested positive for the coronavirus, the judge said. The nursing home, whose location authorities have declined to disclose, has a wing reserved for coronavirus patients.
In an email after the news conference, Georgetown Fire Chief John Sullivan said three Georgetown firefighters are currently in quarantine at the Georgetown Parks and Recreation Tennis Center after a person they were assisting tested positive for the coronavirus.
“They have been quarantined since March 27 and are expected to leave Friday morning and to return to work next week,” Sullivan said. “They have no symptoms, so (they) were not tested.”
Gravell on Wednesday also commented on estimates he made the day before that the county could have 100,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus by mid-August. He had said the projection was based on modeling and statistics from the University of Texas.
“The UT study was based on cases doubling every 2.8 days,” he said Wednesday. “Right now in Williamson County our doubling has been at six days.”
He said he hopes the number of cases he projected Tuesday end up being an overestimate.
“I think the steps we are taking are right,” Gravell said.
The March 26 UT health care demand model provided numbers for the five-county Austin-Round Rock metro area, but not specifically for Williamson County.
UT researchers did not answer questions Wednesday about the accuracy of officials’ estimates on the total number of coronavirus cases that Williamson County could have.
A Google community mobility report showed that the county has been able to reduce retail and recreational interactions, Gravell said. The report shows that the county reduced those interactions by 49% from Feb. 16 to March 29.
Gravell also talked about other efforts to limit the spread of the virus. He said District Judge Donna King has stepped down from her seat to head a team that is making masks for first responders and nursing home facilities.
The team expects to make up to 500 masks by April 13, he said. Sun City residents as well as volunteers at Celebration Church are making the masks, he said.
Once the first responders and nursing home facilities have all received masks, Gravell said he hopes any additional masks can be provided to the public.
He said he didn’t know the number of businesses that had failed in the county because of the shelter-in-place order, but he assured that bankers in the county were working diligently to provide small-business loans to those who need them.
Gravell also urged residents to stay at home during the Easter weekend.
“This will be the first time in 40 years I have not attended church on Easter,” he said. “My wife and I will be sitting together in front of the computer watching worship services online.”
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