COVID Disaster Reaches One Year Milestone Here

County Leaders Have Been Consistently Renewing Disaster Declaration Since Last Feb.

Fayette County Commissioners Court passed another 14-day extension to the local disaster declaration related to COVID-19 at a meeting Thursday, Feb. 25. The occasion marked a year since the Commissioners first declared the disaster.

“You mean we’ve been at this for over a year?” County Judge Joe Weber asked after the item came up for discussion at the meeting last Thursday.

Commissioners first signed the local disaster declaration on Feb. 11, 2020.

They modified the language several times over the past year, mostly in accordance with changes made to the statewide disaster orders issued by Governor Greg Abbott. At one time, the declaration placed a ban on gatherings of more than 10 people, which has since been removed.

“I think we have to renew this until we get any changes from the state,” Weber said just before commissioners voted unanimously to extend the declaration for another two weeks.

Later in the meeting, however, Weber questioned the need to continue the disaster declarations.

“Any projection on when this won’t be a pandemic anymore?” Weber asked Craig Moreau, Fayette County Emergency Management Chief.

“I will say, right now, it is not a pandemic,” Moreau said. “We are in an endemic status. It will be with us for a while. Pandemics relate to a massive acute infection, something that the populous has not seen before. We are not there anymore. This is now a chronic condition we are dealing with.”

Moreau said the disease “will probably never go away completely.”

“We are past the point where it should cause shutdowns of society,” he added.

Pct 3 Commissioner Harvey Berckenhoff asked whether people would have to get a coronavirus shot every year like the flu shot.

“We don’t know yet,” Moreau said.

In other coronavirus news, Moreau reported that Fayette County’s infection rate has fallen to 0.53, meaning that roughly every two people with the disease passes it one other person. An infection rate below one generally results in fewer cases over time in a given community.

“It’s a really, really great number,” Moreau said. “If it stays on that trend, we can move past the worry and trouble very quickly.”

In addition, Moreau reported that 11 percent of Fayette County residents have received at least their first dose of a coronavirus vaccine.

“Many of those have received their second dose as well,” he said.