Record-breaking freeze may have helped stem Brazos County's COVID-19 spread

[TexasTowelie]

The freezing temperatures and power outages of the past week that closed schools and prevented many Brazos Valley residents from getting to work may have helped curtail the number of COVID-19 cases in the region.

The Brazos County Health District resumed its daily updates of COVID-19 cases on Sunday for the first time in a week, reporting 115 new cases.

The number of active cases in the county on Sunday, 514, is less than half of what was reported on Feb. 14, the last time the health department reported case numbers and the first day of freezing temperatures. That day, health department officials reported 1,062 active cases among county residents.

The number of active cases of the virus in Brazos County hasn’t been this low since the first week of November.

Read more: https://theeagle.com/news/local/record-breaking-freeze-may-have-helped-stem-brazos-countys-covid-19-spread/article_904c7b6e-745f-11eb-a326-eb06e32e0fb6.html
(Bryan-College Station Eagle)

[tanyev]

1. At the beginning of the week I wondered if the storm would help Covid numbers,

forcing people to stay home, etc. But then when it got really bad, people losing power for hours or days, water pipes bursting, forcing people to go to shelters, I began to wonder if this would become a statewide superspreader event.

[TexasTowelie]

2. Fortunately, I never lost electrical power at my apartment in Bryan.

I did not read about any outages in the local area, but we did have enough ice and snow that it could have affected some of the power lines.

[tanyev]

3. Oh, I'm in the northern DFW area.

Maybe it wasn’t quite so bad where you are. We live near a fire station and never lost our power, but so many up here did.

[LeftInTX]

4. I lost power in San Antonio for 30 hours. Rolling blackouts orderedby Ercot

I live near a fire station and a nursing home.


One fire station near us was completely black.

[tanyev]

5. Wow, fire station went out, too?

I just assumed the fire station near us was why we never lost power. The only other thing close by is one of those small stand-alone ERs, but I doubt they would rate as high priority during a critical event. Maybe it was just blind stupid luck.

Hope things are doing better for you now.

[LeftInTX]

6. We have two fire stations near me.

One is 1.8 miles away. The other is 1.5 miles way. I guess if they wanted to preserve power at all fire stations, they would probably not be able to have rolling blackouts on any circuit.

Things are back to normal, except for my yard..LOL Dealing with the garden fiasco and trying to save plants. At least it's warm and plants are beginning to recover.