Bastrop County and its team of medical professionals are rolling out various strategies this week to combat the spread of the coronavirus, officials announced Monday morning.

A testing site, a recovery unit, a patient monitoring center and a food delivery service for senior citizens are all planned to become operational sometime this week, they said.

“I’m here to tell you this morning that this is going to get worse before it gets better,” said Christine Files, deputy director of the Office of Emergency Management. “But we will prevail and we will recover.”

On Tuesday afternoon, the county is expected to open a COVID-19 testing site at a yet undisclosed location. Priority testing will be granted to first responders and health care providers, though anyone approved for testing must have a doctor’s referral.

“We have not yet announced where it will be located because it’s not going to be something that’s open to the public,” said Bastrop County Judge Paul Pape. “As you can imagine, we don’t want two to three thousand cars driving up wanting testing.”

Pape also would not disclose how many test kits the facility will have on hand.

Flattening the curve

Bastrop County and the Lower Colorado River Authority are partnering to establish a recovery center for first responders who have been exposed to COVID-19 and do not want to risk possibly infecting their families. First responders will be able to live in a unit provided by the LCRA while they self-isolate. It is not yet known when this facility will be available.

Similarly, the county is also working to establish a patient recovery center for people who test positive for COVID-19. The recovery center will provide rooms and beds for residents to stay in while they’re infected with the disease.

“The goal here is to flatten the curve, and to do that we must all work together,” Files said. “This week we will be expanding our purview by adding the recovery unit to our organizational chart. The economic fallout will be real and it will be felt for years, and we want to be sure that we start now helping our community recover.”

The county will also launch a program that will deliver meals to senior citizens, although little information on this program or its launch date has been released.

“The problem right now is, how do we identify those seniors in need?” Files said.

Coronavirus hits home

Bastrop County recorded its first positive COVID-19 case on Saturday, and as of Monday it remained the only confirmed case in the county. Local Bastrop County officials in coordination with the Texas Department of State Health Services are working to identify and notify any people the 37-year-old man may have had contact with recently, officials said.

Bastrop County Health Authority Dr. Desmar Walkes said last week that health officials believe there is a high chance the virus is freely spreading around the county.

“We are quite certain that the virus is here and circulating in Bastrop County,” Walkes said. “If left to freely transmit throughout the county, we could rapidly outstrip hospital and health care capacity in our county.”

Walkes has assembled a medical team of local physicians that guide the county’s response to the spreading virus. Other doctors on this team include Dr. Rajeev Gupta, Dr. Pompeyo Chavez and Dr. Robert Dougherty. Additionally, Walkes has assembled a health advisory team consisting of pulmonologists, epidemiologists and representatives from Ascension Seton, St. David’s Medical Center, Physicians Premier Emergency Room and Acadian.

Each day, these teams hold a daily briefing at 9 a.m., followed by a meeting of the Joint Information Center, which includes representatives from Bastrop County, Smithville, Elgin and Bastrop. At 12:30 p.m. the medical teams meet for a briefing, and an operations team meets at 2 p.m. to craft the next day’s plan, officials said.