Health Care
With Storage Space Evaporating, the Oil and Gas Industry Will Get to Put Its Products Back Underground
Home Wasn’t Safe. Then COVID-19 Made It Seem Like the Only Option.
Seeing a “disturbing” decrease in clients and callers amid COVID-19 stay-at-home orders, some domestic violence shelters in rural counties worry this is just the “calm before the storm.”
Home Wasn’t Safe. Then COVID-19 Made It Seem Like the Only Option. Seeing a “disturbing” decrease in clients and callers amid COVID-19 stay-at-home orders...Read More
Is Texas Inflating Its COVID-19 Testing Numbers by Including Antibody Tests?
The state health department is including some antibody test results in its case totals, potentially clouding information on the current spread of the virus.
Texas health officials are combining some antibody tests along with more common viral tests in statewide COVID-19 tracking data. Experts say this muddies the da...Read More
Texas Has Stopped Kicking Thousands of Kids Off Medicaid Each Month During the Pandemic, but Advocates Point to Delays for New Enrollees
Texas' frequent eligibility checks for kids on Medicaid are on hold during the COVID-19 public health emergency.
For years, some Texas families have been stuck in a persistent cycle. Their kids are covered by Medicaid, until suddenly they’re kicked off. Sometimes parents...Read More
Texas Health Officials Undercount COVID-19 Cases by Excluding Some Prisoners Who Tested Positive
The Observer identified at least nine Texas counties where current prison cases make up more than 10 percent of the total COVID-19 cases in the county.
COVID-19 cases have skyrocketed in Texas prisons in recent weeks, with the virus infecting and killing incarcerated people and staff, and likely spreading into ...Read More
In Rural Counties, COVID-19 Cases are Likely Undercounted. Greg Abbott Wants to Reopen them Anyway.
More than 100 Texas counties—many with limited medical resources—will be able to reopen businesses to 50 percent capacity on Friday.
In Red River County, a community of about 12,000 in far northeast Texas, the first confirmed COVID-19 case didn’t come until mid-April, despite the ballooning...Read More
Demand for Plasma Therapy for the Sickest COVID-19 Patients Far Outpaces Donations
Texas blood banks and the Red Cross are actively recruiting donors but remain thwarted by a lack of antibody tests.
A few weeks ago, the Food and Drug Administration dropped a huge project in the lap of the American Red Cross: Help sign up enough people to donate plasma rich ...Read More
Dozens of COVID-19 Cases Have Been Reported in Rural Texas Counties With No Hospitals and No Licensed Physicians
So far, more than 100 cases have been reported in counties with only one—or no—licensed physician.
The first reported COVID-19 death in Texas arrived unexpectedly in a rural hospital with just six beds in its tiny ICU. Eddie Roberts, a 97-year-old funeral hom...Read More
Mapping the Number of COVID-19 Cases in Texas per Doctor
Many counties with limited medical resources—including no primary care physicians—now have COVID-19 cases.
Only a month after the first COVID-19 death occurred in rural Matagorda County, reported cases had already spread to 198 counties as of April 21. And cases are ...Read More
COVID-19 Cases Now Tied to Meat Plants in Rural Texas Counties Wracked with Coronavirus
The outbreaks, which are being investigated by the state health agency, represent the first reported cases of the virus inside Texas meatpacking plants, and are in rural areas where medical resources are already stretched thin.
A meatpacking plant in Deep East Texas appears to be connected to an outbreak of COVID-19 in a rural part of the state where the number of coronavirus cases has...Read More