Rural counties without vaccine continuing to face rising COVID cases
LLANO COUNTY, Texas - An uptick in COVID cases continues to plague Llano County.
"Our main goal is to protect our population. 37% of our population is age over 65 and those are the people we really wanna protect and take care of," said Gilbert Bennett the emergency management coordinator for Llano County.
The county, which had single-digit cases and was even exempt from the mask-wearing order back in September, has more than 100 active cases. While this number is lower than in counties such as Travis, Williamson, and Hays, the impact is taking a toll for a county of their size.
"We’re pretty much at a steady spike because of the early seven day testing a lot of it is people trying to get back to work so they’ve been quarantined for seven days trying to get the test done," said Bennett.
This impact can be seen in the city of Llano’s Police Department. They took to social media and posted that they have cases in their department and because of this it’s impacting the way to handle certain calls.
Unless it’s absolutely necessary for an officer to respond they’ll be taking reports over the phone, they also say they won’t be responding to minor traffic incidences and urges people to file a report through TxDOT.
Right now, the Llano County Sheriff’s Office is assisting the department during this time. "In a rural environment everybody has to help everybody you gotta look out for each other," said Bennett.
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While many areas in Texas have received the vaccine, Bennett said they’re not sure when their county will receive them. "We do not have it. We are not part of week 2 allocations, it is a phased approach they were going to do a phase distribution unfortunately we’re just not part of the second week," said Bennett.
They aren’t the only rural county with a hospital that has yet to receive the vaccine. The Texas Association of Rural Hospitals says, out of the 167 rural hospitals in Texas, only about half have received the vaccine so far.
Bennett said the staff at their hospital was offered to be put on a list with a nearby hospital. "The nurses have been offered a vaccine through Baylor Scott and White distribution that they received in Marble Falls," said Bennett.
While they’re not sure when the vaccine will come to Llano County they’re urging people to remember to wear a mask and social distance.