SEMANAL GRATUITO / WEEKLY FREE
Miercoles 09 de Septiembre de 2020 Roma, Rio Grande City, San Isidro, Sullivan, La Grulla
Volumen 05 Edición 01 https://www.facebook.com/eltejanodelsure
The Case of the Missing COVID-19 Reports Dina Garcia-Peña, Starr County
In two occasions Dr. Falcon has asked Starr County staff members, mainly Cynthia Fuentes who is the public relations director for the county, to send out media reports daily. The latest was last week during a press conference. Yet, every time there are results for COVID-19 a poorly designed colored square with three numbers are posted on Social Media with no explanation. There is no indicator as to resources, declines or even an opportunity to ask questions. The last time I asked Dr. Falcon how the media is supposed to receive these reports he seemed surprised that there were no media reports sent out. Last weekend I asked our County’s public relations director why we don’t have those reports. First, she said she was simply too busy to put out those reports. Then she claimed that Dr. Falcon doesn’t understand what social media is or how it works, or he would understand that the media doesn’t need one. Towards the end she started saying that it was the state that had not sent any results. To which I replied then why haven’t we been given an explanation. During this conversation I was able to get much more information than what has been available and if you look at the Starr County Facebook you can see that she posted quite a bit that day. For starters did you know we had a gap in reports during the transition between Dr. Vasquez and Dr. Falcon? No, neither did I but now I do. Then the reports came. Not to the media, of course. No making the county’s social media page popular is much more important than public health. Supposedly the state has had results on backlog. Starr County had 191 missing results from back in March. To make the water a bit muddier, the most recent report shows that we have only 610 active cases when four days prior we had 1,886 cases. Our closing deadline is Tuesday and tomorrow there will be a press conference featuring our health authority but as of tonight I don’t believe the numbers. Our publication cannot in good faith give those numbers as an accurate account of the cases in Starr County. The data collection and reporting has become painfully secretive. We suggest everyone wash their hands, use sanitizer, and wear a mask because I truly don’t know how our community is doing.