CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The holiday season just wrapped up and it’s still unknown how the holidays impacted us in terms of new cases and the transmission rate. Dr. Chris Bird with the COVID-19 task force says the task force basically has two winter holiday scenarios.
“Scenario one where we have the transmission rate continuing at 1.13 that's the same as last week’s projection,” said Dr. Bird. “The second scenario being celebrated like Thanksgiving 2020 where the transmission rate dropped to 0.91 as it did surrounding thanksgiving before returning again to 1.13.”
Now how would these two scenarios impact the way businesses are operating right now?
Dr. Bird says the first scenario would trigger a rollback to businesses going back to 50 percent capacities.
That would be projected to happen January 13, but the second scenario would not trigger a roll back.
Dr. Bird also stated that daily cases across the coastal bend are on the rise.
“The active cases is currently at 2,886 and it’s increasing ever so slightly, but it’s essentially maintained at approximately the same level for the past several weeks,” said Dr. Bird.
Certain age groups including people 65-years old and older are considered high risk if they catch the virus. Dr. Bird says the number of cases for that age group is fairly high.
“In the 80 plus age group that’s the most susceptible to negative effects of COVID-19 there’s been a fairly steep increase in the number of cases in the past couple of weeks in that 80 plus age group,” said Dr. Bird.
Dr. Bird says cases in Nueces County are continuing to rise, but Jim Wells is also seeing an increase in their daily number of cases.
“Jim Wells is leading the other 11 counties and it’s getting up there with over 25 new cases per day,” said Dr. Bird.
Although cases across the coastal bend may be on the rise hospitalizations are decreasing.
“This is some of those mixed signals that we get during these periods where we have holidays, where there may be a delay in reporting, along with a change in transmission rate either higher or lower,” said Dr. Bird.
Although it’s still unknown whether which projected scenario is correct Dr. Bird says this is not the time to let our guard down.
“Regardless of which scenarios correct we’re fairly sure that the transmission rate is above 1 and the fall winter outbreak is continuing,” said Dr. Bird.
For the latest updates on coronavirus in the Coastal Bend, click here.
More from 3News on KIIITV.com: