City leaders stress continued safety as state reopens services, businesses

Two city leaders met last Friday to update the community on the developments of COVID-19 and to address local questions. Young County Local Health Authority, Dr. Pat Martin, provided an update on local cases and why the community should stay vigilant with their prevention methods.

Dr. Martin was joined Friday by Graham Mayor Neal Blanton who spoke about his reservations reopening the state with COVID-19 still around.

“I think that one of the things that is alarming to me is, you know, we went that five-week period of time when we were kind of in lockdown and we didn’t have any new cases and then, you know, when we start to open things up a little bit,” Blanton said. “I know that the governor has said that he is not going to require people to wear masks, you know, outside or locations, but he did say and it is something that we as a county and we as a city, I think, need to look at and encourage our businesses is, that businesses can require people to wear masks as they come into their business and I think it’s an important part.”

Blanton said despite the county not seeing rapid hospitalizations as a result of COVID-19, he has watched the hotspots in Texas, Arizona and California and seen the spike in cases in the state and locally in Young County. Dr. Martin said the county has seen a rise in cases in the last few weeks.

“This week, you know, started pretty busy, we had seven cases Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Yesterday we had no new cases and this morning we’ve had one more case that’s positive,” Dr. Martin said. “We have 10 or 11 active cases (as of Friday) right now. There is one case that probably will be declared inactive by the end of today, but the county so far we’ve had 28 cases, today will make 29 and then we’ve had another five cases that came from out of the county that won’t be listed on our county numbers.”

For the rest of the story, see the June 24 edition of The Graham Leader.