CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — States across the country began to see a rise in cases as the fall season started; slowly but surely, the Coastal Bend began to see that happen as well.
"This week we're at all double digits which means we're closer to 19, 30, 33, 39 and we only had one day where we had a single digit," said Annette Rodriguez, the health director for the Nueces County Corpus Christi Health District.
Although the increase in new COVID-19 cases in the Coastal Bend seemed alarming to some residents, others say it may not have been something to worry about so soon.
"They don't just go in one direction, they go up, they go down, they go up again, they go down again," said Dr. Chris Bird, a Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi Associate Professor.
Dr. Bird said the period of somewhat stable cases may only last so long, however. There was a break of time between spring and fall where COVID-19 didn't spread, but the break would end.
"That's when you have more of a possibility of having an uptick in your numbers so it's like everything's going against us to not have the uptick," said Rodriguez.
Rodriguez also said there's a number of reasons why the community may have begun to see a continuous rise in cases. One of those reasons being in-person learning, followed by early voting, holiday and lower temperatures. The change in weather means more people are spending time indoors.
"Any place where you have people congregating together, you're going to have that possibility," said Rodriguez.
While cases continued to remain relatively low in the Coastal Bend compared to other places across the state, she said her team was focusing on contact tracing; a key element in slowing the spread of the virus.
"Everybody's getting pandemic fatigue so we just want to keep reminding people, don't give up the fight right now," said Rodriguez.