CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Nueces County officials hosted a COVID-19 press conference after seeing a major spike in hospitalizations and ICU patients. It leads them to believe that the COVID-19 Delta Variant is in our community.
"I think yesterday, we were at 77 hospitalizations when a few days ago, we were below 30" said Annette Rodriguez, the Public Health Director of Nueces County. "We were probably closer to 22, 23 hospitalizations in a day".
Health officials say COVID-19 is spreading throughout the community faster than in the past.
"Something different is happening and probably is a variant that's here and we believe it to be the Delta," said Rodriguez.
On top of the uptick, there's another dangerous trend officials are noticing.
"The problem is we probably had vaccinated people with unvaccinated people that we not wearing their mask," Rodriguez added.
She said in some cases, families are only hurting themselves when members don't social distance or wear a mask if they choose not to get vaccinated.
"I did a contact trace maybe two days ago and seven members in the household, all positive."
Getting vaccinated doesn't prevent a COVID infection, but it can help the chances of not get hospitalized; but Texas isn't exactly leading in that area, and it shows.
"Texas, Missouri and Florida are among three states in the nation with the lowest vaccination rates," said Nueces County Judge Barbara Canales.
While there are no confirmed cases of the Delta variant, the county said it's only a matter of time. A few weeks ago, suspected delta samples were sent to a lab and they're still waiting for those results.