NUECES COUNTY, Texas — With the Corpus Christi Independent School District's return to the classroom at the beginning of this week, we've been watching COVID case counts.
So far, there's nearly 250 reported cases of COVID-19. The majority of those are from students.
The Corpus Christi – Nueces County Public Health District typically handles contact tracing, but with the overwhelming amount of new cases each day, the state had stepped in to help.
That's going to change beginning in September when the City-County Health District will be solely in charge of contact tracing.
That's something that concerns Corpus Christi – Nueces County Public Health Director Annette Rodriguez.
"With the delta, you can probably easily give it to eight, nine, 10 people and so again, a lot more contagious," Rodriguez said. "When you put them all into a school in a congregate setting, and they're all together in a small environment, there's even more mobility for this virus to spread more quickly."
Rodriguez said the City-County Public Health District is hiring more people to help with contact tracing. So far, they've brought in about 30 and need to hire 200 more.