CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Nueces County is seeing more than 9,000 cases of COVID-19 reported for August.
That surpasses the winter surge and is also inching closer to surpassing the spike we experienced during the summer of 2020. Hospitalizations are also continuing to rise.
Breakthrough cases are now up to 574. Of those, 65 people were hospitalized. 16 people died.
City leaders said these numbers are still very small compared to the number of unvaccinated people who are getting the virus.
Council Member Mike Pusley is the latest official to speak out and encourage others to get the vaccine as almost half of the new COVID cases are affecting the younger population.
"I've taken a lot of hits for this, lost a lot of friends over this but I'm encouraging everybody to get vaccinated," Pusley said. "It's time for us to get our head out of the sand. We don't want to see another economic shutdown of our city, state, and country. There will be dire consequences if that happens."
Public Health Director Annette Rodriguez said with so many cases, they are getting behind on contract tracing.
Council approved $1 million to provide temporary health care staffing for COVID-19 vaccinations. They're hoping to hire at least $1,000 more people.