Limestone County hits 14 COVID-19 cases
By Roxanne Thompson
Emergency Management Director for Limestone County Matt Groveton announced Saturday that the county had acquired its 14th case of COVID-19.
The Department of State Health Services Region 7 notified him of the new case, a woman in her 40s who lives “on the outskirts of Mexia.” No other information was made available, except that the case was not discovered through Thursday’s mobile testing event in Groesbeck. All the tests Thursday were negative, Groveton clarified.
Of the county’s 14 cases, most have recovered and one died. This new case brings the number of active cases in Limestone County to three since County Judge Richard Duncan announced April 30 that the county had only two active cases.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has announced as part of his plan to re-open Texas’ businesses that rural counties with five or fewer active cases of COVID-19 could go straight to opening up restaurants, retail stores, theaters, and museums and libraries at 50 percent percent capacity rather than beginning with 25 percent capacity and waiting a few weeks. The counties allowed to go to 50 percent customer capacity, however, must also follow all other provisions for mitigating the virus including the minimum standard health protocols.
Also, those counties with five or fewer that qualify for going to 50 percent capacity must revert to limiting customers to 25 percent capacity if:
• The county has five consecutive testing/tracking intervals with positive testing rates greater than 12 percent;
• The county has three positive cases per 1,000 residents; or
• The hospitals in that area drop to less than 15 percent surge capacity.
Duncan said in a Facebook post on April 30 that he signed that day to attest to the county’s five or fewer active cases so Limestone will be in that category. He also appealed to citizens to follow the virus mitigation guidelines:
“Please continue to do what you can to comply,” he wrote. “Phase II is coming on May 18th. Please work with us all to keep us moving back to some form of normalcy.”
