COVID cases and death toll rises

The number of COVID-19 cases continues to mount in Donley County, and four people have now died after contracting the disease, according to County Judge John Howard, MD.

“There have been a total of four deaths – three in the month of November, and there may be others,” Howard said, noting that it took state officials more than a month to report the county’s first COVID-related death in July.

Clarendon Family Medical Center said Tuesday morning that it has now conducted 736 tests on local residents, up from 666 one week ago. While 519 of those tests were negative for the COVID-19 virus, 217 have been confirmed cases. That’s an increase of 24 positive cases in seven days.

The clinic also reported 29 active cases Tuesday under its care compared to 44 one week ago. Again, the local active number does not reflect patients who might have tested at Childress or elsewhere.

Combined with known positive test results on local residents at facilities outside the county, the total confirmed cases are now 255, an increase of 31 from a week ago.
Howard says the local clinic had 122 positive cases for the month of November, and 14 people have been hospitalized.

“With tests conducted at other facilities, we believe the total number of positives for Donley County is close to 140 for November,” Howard said. “That’s still one in ten people who have to be hospitalized.”

Howard said he knows of two people from Donley County currently on ventilators.

The judge and doctor also expressed concern that some people doubt the accuracy of the tests being conducted at the local clinic.

“Our test is 97 percent sensitive and 98.5 percent specific,” he said. “If this test says you’ve got it, you’ve got it. It is possible that if you’re not shedding enough virus, you could be negative today and positive tomorrow. At some point you just have to trust that we know what we’re doing.”

Howard also reminds everyone that there is a mask order in Donley County, and in fact all counties, from Gov. Greg Abbott.

“A lot of people are ignoring the order,” he said. “We have 38 percent of the patients in Amarillo hospitals are COVID patients. It is wide spread in the Panhandle. People are just not doing the right thing, but I am seeing more do the right thing.”