Galveston County has lowest COVID-19-positive test rate in Houston area
GALVESTON COUNTY, Texas - Of all the counties surrounding Houston, Galveston County beats them all by a long shot when it comes to the number of COVID-19 tests that have been administered. Galveston County Health District has tracked 21,878 tests thanks in large part to UTMB, and of those, a whopping 21,191 of them came back negative. Just 686 coronavirus cases have been identified in the county.
“Right now our positivity rate is about 1.6% of the tests are coming back positive,” said Dr. Philip Keiser with Galveston County Health District.
That’s a lower infection rate than any of the other counties surrounding Houston.
Last weekend the Galveston County Health District officials say they shut down their two public testing sites in part because so many other testing locations had opened and in part due to manpower.
“As the health department, it was quite difficult to do our core functions,” said Keiser.
Keiser estimated there are still about 700 COVID-19 tests being taken each day in the county, which is only a snapshot. If you test negative you can still catch the virus tomorrow. So should you get tested again?
“Once you’ve been tested—with the rate so low—what I would recommend—at least in our county right now is that you don’t get tested again unless you have a reason to,” said Keiser. “And that reason could be that you were around a lot of people and you think you were exposed. Or you know you were exposed to COVID, and we see this a lot with first responders. Or you start having symptoms that are consistent with COVID.”
He says the curve in the county is on the way down, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be a flare-up in the future, so he still recommends social distancing and washing your hands.
The below data shows that while Galveston County more than tripled Fort Bend County’s numbers in testing, Fort Bend County more than doubled Galveston County’s numbers when it comes to positive cases of COVID-19. (All data is from 5/12/2020)
GALVESTON COUNTY
Total tests administered: 21,878
Total negatives: 21,191
Total positives: 686
Total recovered: 408
Total active: 249
Total hospitalized: 15
Total deaths: 29
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FORT BEND COUNTY
Total tests administered: 6,160
Total negative: 4,756
Total positives: 1,404
Total recovered: 240
Total active: 1,164
Total hospitalized: unknown
Total deaths: 40
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MATAGORDA COUNTY (location of Texas’ first COVID-19 death)
Total tests administered: 1,600+
Total negative: 1,500+
Total positive: 64
Total recovered: 34
Total active: 25
Total hospitalized: 3
Total deaths: 5
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MONTGOMERY COUNTY
Total tests administered: 8,600+
Total negative: 7,900+
Total positive: 724
Total recovered: 255
Total active: 452
Total hospitalized: 54
Total deaths: 17
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LIBERTY COUNTY
Total tests administered: unknown
Total negative: unknown
Total positive: 64
Total recovered: 33
Total active: 31
Total hospitalized: 0
Total deaths: 2
BRAZORIA COUNTY
Total tests administered: unknown
Total negative: unknown
Total positive: 673
Total recovered: 345
Total active: 319
Total hospitalized: 15%
Total deaths: 9
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CHAMBERS COUNTY
Total tests administered: 996
Total negative: 946
Total positive: 50
Total recovered: 41
Total active: 9
Total hospitalized: 1
Total deaths: 0
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WALLER COUNTY
Total tests administered: unknown
Total negative: unknown
Total positive: 37
Total recovered: 23
Total active: 14
Total hospitalized: 1
Total deaths: 0
Click here for the county's dashboard