TodayKerrville

 

A second patient at the Kerrville State Hospital has died from COVID-19, while the situation at Kerrville' Brookdale Guadalupe River Plaza nursing home came into focus with time-delayed data released by Texas Health and Human Services.  While Peterson Health is not reporting new data on Thursday — due to the New Year's holiday — the state released information that showed a death at the Kerrville State Hospital on Tuesday. That marks the 24th death in Kerr County this month and the 64th death during the coronavirus pandemic.  On Wednesday, social media posts began to emerge of an outbreak at Brookdale Guadalupe — a nursing home and assisted living facility. Texas Health and Human Services will not confirm current outbreaks, data released on Thursday showed that three employees tested positive for the virus on Dec. 17. In previous outbreaks at Kerrville area nursing homes and assisted living centers, employee outbreaks led to the spread to patients and residents.  During th...

Peterson Health confirmed that one person died on Wednesday from COVID-19, while 22 people tested positive for the virus.  This latest death is estimated to be the 23rd from Kerr County in December and the 63rd during the coronavirus pandemic. The death is Peterson's seventh this month and 13th since Sept. 29.  Peterson Regional Medical Center had 31 people hospitalized with the virus on Wednesday.  During Monday's Kerr County Commissioner's Court meeting, Peterson Health President and CEO Cory Edmondson made a key point, which had previously not been reported, that the state of Texas only considers 88 of the hospital's 124 beds to be fully staffed when it comes to COVID-19 care. The difference is that 26 beds are reserved for rehabilitation, while the remaining 12 can be held as a reserve. Peterson has converted some of those beds to free up capacity. However, it also means that the hospital's percentage of COVID-19 cases is higher than previously reported.  Earlie...

A woman donates clothes to Brenda Hughes on Tuesday to help a family that lost their home in a Center Point fire on Sunday. When Brenda Hughes heard the news that one of her employees had lost their home in a fire on Sunday, she sprang into action and she may have just found a new cause to carry onto the Kerrville City Council.  The Walters family lost everything in a fast-moving fire that destroyed their Center Point home on Sunday afternoon. Ray Walters, the patriarch of the family of five, works at Buzzie's Bar-B-Q, which Hughes owns with her husband, Buzzie. He only started working at the Schreiner Street barbecue institution earlier this year, but he's garnered plenty of support from the family.  "They don't even have a nail clipper left," said Brenda Hughes about the family's plight in the aftermath of the fire.  So, Hughes turned to Facebook — along with her network of allies at Kerrville Pets Alive! and other organizations — to lead a drive of just abo...

Public health experts knew it was coming — a gigantic surge of coronavirus cases due to the Christmas break — but what happened in Texas on Tuesday was stunning.   On the day, the Texas Department of State Health Services reported more than 30,000 new cases, including 4,000 probable cases. On Tuesday, Texas hospitals initially reported that there were 23,000 people admitted for COVID-19, but that changed later in the day with the state walking back that number to 11,775 — still a record. The state had more than 600 intensive care unit beds.  By 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, the DSHS was still updating its website but the truth that COVID-19 was fully raging in Texas was clear.  In Kerr County, DSHS also reported another death —this one from Dec. 23. Coupled with a third death at the Villagio of Kerrville assisted living center on Dec. 15, Kerr County's death toll is estimated to be 62, including 22 deaths in December. 

The surge of coronavirus cases in Kerr County continued unabated as the region heads toward a long New Year's weekend with 40 new COVID-19 cases reported on Tuesday by Peterson Health, and an assisted living center reported its third death this month.  The virus, which has now claimed the lives of an estimated 61 people from Kerr County, has infected more than 700 people in the county in December. Peterson Regional Medical Center saw its COVID-19 patient count fall from a high of 32 on Monday morning to 29 on Tuesday afternoon. The hospital has now had a minimum of 40 people admitted for COVID-19 in December — the number could be far higher.  Since Nov. 30, COVID-19 care at Peterson Regional Medical Center has accounted for 411 days. The last time that the hospital had less than 10 COVID-19 patients was on Nov. 8 — with eight.  In data released by Texas Health and Human Services on Tuesday, the situation at Villagio of Kerrville — an Alpine Drive assisted living center — ...

The federal Paycheck Protection Program was designed to help small businesses navigate the coronavirus pandemic, and the program poured more than $30 million into Kerr County earlier this year.  In turn, that program helped save more than 3,500 jobs at the 827 small Kerr County businesses that received forgivable loans of $150,000 or less. Most of these businesses employ less than 30 people — many are sole proprietorships.  In Kerrville, 51 businesses received loans of more than $100,000. The smallest amount received was $527. The largest recipients of the loans were those receiving between $21,000 and $99,000 — 49% of all loans.  There was another 322 that received $20,000 or less from the program.  Gil Salinas, the chief operating officer of the Kerr Economic Development Corp., said the PPP was a key tool in helping save lots of jobs and small businesses.  "That program did what it was supposed to do," said Salinas, adding that the program was not without cont...

Schreiner University's athletic programs are set to resume in the new year — even as the coronavirus pandemic has wiped out most of the NCAA Division III season.  Schreiner's men's and women's basketball teams will visit Southwestern in the season opener on Jan. 15 for a two-game set that will conclude on Jan. 16. The Mountaineers will return home the following week to play host to Centenary.  As of Dec. 29, Schreiner is set to play only against teams from the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference. The only postseason action will be the conference tournaments scheduled for March 4-6.  Men's and women's soccer and volleyball will all return to action in February. The conference scrapped a plan to have volleyball teams play a round-robin tournament format at one site and has now reverted back to home and away matches. Schreiner's volleyball team will start its season on Feb. 13 by playing host to Colorado College. Like basketball, the only post-season tourna...

In the ever confusing numbers game that is COVID-19, Peterson Health's own reporting proved to be a challenge on Monday when it misstated the number of positive cases. One number showed just 17 new cases from Dec. 23 through Monday, while another reported 94 — which is more in line with recent trends.  Regardless, Peterson Health experienced a myriad of issues — as did Texas — on Monday when it comes to containing the virus that has killed more than 23,000 people. By the end of Monday, there were 31 people hospitalized with COVID-19 —down from an earlier count of 32. Across Texas, the number of people hospitalized hit a record with 11,351 people admitted with COVID-19.  In the Texas Department of State Health Services Trauma Region P, which includes San Antonio and Kerrville, more than 1,100 people were hospitalized with the virus. There were less than 100 intensive care unit beds available in the region. During a meeting of the Kerr County Commissioners Court, Judge Rob Kelly...

The Villagio of Kerrville Assisted Living home.  The long-delayed data from the Texas Health and Human Services showed a worsening outbreak of coronavirus in one of Kerrville's assisted living centers — the Villagio. As of Dec. 14, the Alpine Drive-based residential care facility had a second death of one of its residents between Dec. 11 and Dec. 14 and had 12 residents and seven staff members infected with COVID-19. All told, 17 residents and 12 employees have tested positive for the virus.  Health and Human Services delay the release of the data by two weeks but during that weekend of Dec. 12-13, the number of cases doubled among residents, along with the death. It's unknown if the person died at Villagio or at another facility, but the death does not correlate with reporting from the Texas Department of State Health Services or Peterson Health.  With this death, Kerrville Today estimates Kerr County's death toll from COVID-19 at 60 people. In the cases of long-term car...

  During Monday's Kerr County Commissioners Court, Peterson Health President and CEO Cory Edmondson revealed that Peterson Regional Medical Center had 32 people hospitalized with COVID-19 at the 124-bed hospital — the most of the pandemic.  The number of patients equals 25% of the hospital's total beds — well beyond the 15% the state would like to see as a safe threshold. HILL COUNTRY DISTRICT JUNIOR LIVESTOCK SHOW IS CANCELLED The annual Hill Country District Junior Livestock show will not be happening in 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic — the decision coming on the heels of a state recommendation against mass gatherings. The huge livestock and agricultural arts is one of Kerr County's biggest annual events — drawing participants from all over the Hill Country.  In a statement on its website, HCDJLS President Steve Bauer said a smaller event focused on Kerr County will still happen, but that the larger event will skip a year and return in 2022. “We believed we had a ...

Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly said Monday morning that all bars — that don't serve food — will be forced to close today because of the high number of hospitalizations related to COVID-19.  This order comes from the state and Kelly said that the county's first priority was to protect Peterson Regional Medical Center from having to deal with a surge of coronavirus cases. Peterson has been consistently been at 15% of its admitted patients being treated for COVID-19. Kelly made the announcement during Monday's commissioner's court meeting. On Monday, Peterson Health President and CEO Cory Edmondson said the 124-bed hospital now had 32 patients with COVID-19 — a record for the hospital.  That count puts the hospital way outside of state's requirements.  Commissioner Harley Belew repeatedly tried to deflect the situation by questioning the counting of cases, and if all Peterson's cases were Kerr County residents. Edmondson said when it comes to the state and how they ar...

The Texas Department of State Health Services noted Thursday that a person from Kerr County died from COVID-19 on Dec. 20 — the 19th coronavirus-related fatality in December.  While Peterson Health is now taking time off from reporting COVID-19 cases through Christmas, but the state continues to provide updates. Many of Kerr County's deaths have occurred outside of Peterson Regional Medical Center. The estimated death toll is now 59 people since May. However, December is proving to be the deadliest month yet during the pandemic. Peterson Health officials said they now have the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine and should start administering it to frontline health workers in the days to come.  The active number of cases in Kerr County is now more than 400 people. 

For the second consecutive year, the Power Hour Christian Center in Ingram held its living nativity scene. There was a donkey, goats, sheep and plenty of good will.    

The Kerrville City Council faces a series of challenging economic development questions in 2021.  THE TRUE COST OF THE PANDEMIC As of this writing, there have been more than 2,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus in Kerr County — although the number is probably far greater — and what makes this challenging is assessing the lost productivity from those infections. How much does that hurt? Those are questions that won't be answered right away, but it's could be expected that the pandemic has cost local businesses millions in lost productivity and revenue.  Consider these numbers:  Of those infected in Texas, according to the Department of State Health Services, 76% have been in the 20-59-year-old demographic.  If that trend is representative in Kerr County that means more than 1,500 people have been infected in that age demographic. In turn, that means that those people have been taken out of the workforce at some point during the pandemic. Let's say that 1,000 of them a...