Kerr County forces bars to close after exceeding COVID-19 numbers

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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 are measuring hospital capacity it doesn't matter where the patient lives — only that they are hospitalized at Peterson. 

Edmondson offered this grim assessment: "We don't have the capacity to accept patients from outside of our area. If they show up to our (Emergency Department) and they're COVID positive and they're from Bandera or Gillespie. We're going to admit them."

Belew asked Edmondson if the hospital was being incentivized to treat COVID patients. Edmondson said that the hospital received an extra 20% reimbursement for those on Medicare, but that didn't come close to covering the costs of treating those patients. 

"We've spent $4.5 million on COVID care and expenses," said Edmondson, who was making his first appearance in front of the commissioners. "That's from PPE to staffing. It applies for additional staff to care for individuals."

Edmondson also shot down rumors that the flu cases were being counted as COVID-19. 

"We count it differently," Edmondson explained. "We test for flu, strep and COVID-19." 



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