Could it be? Houston County still coronavirus-free

Nearly halfway between Houston and Dallas, cities where coronavirus cases continue to climb, Jim Lovell found himself Monday in an unexpected situation.

The Houston County Judge still hadn’t heard of a confirmed COVID-19 case in his county.

“We just don’t allow it here,” Lovell said, managing a joke amid the public health crisis.

The county of about 23,000 residents considers itself a gateway of sorts to the piney woods. Davy Crockett National Forest covers a good portion of the area. Many residents work cattle and timber.

People are drawn to Houston County for the slower, quieter lifestyle, Lovell said. He heard that some from bigger cities had moved to their RV parks to ride out the virus scare.

As of last count, 76 of Texas’ 254 counties officially remained coronavirus-free. Every jurisdiction around Houston County had reported a case, though the state tally did not yet reflect one in neighboring Madison. People have tested positive in the vast majority of counties on the eastern side of the state.

There were more than 14,000 confirmed coronavirus cases statewide.

“I’m pretty shocked myself,” said Roger Dickey, Houston County’s emergency management coordinator. “We’re just like a little island here.”

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It’s perhaps impossible to explain how the county had been so lucky. Early on, as in rural West Texas, it seemed like only a matter of time before the new coronavirus reached their part of the state.

“We’re just sitting around holding our breath,” said Lovell’s administrative assistant, answering the phone. “Our faces are kind of red.”

They don’t want the anomaly to give folks a false sense of security, either. It’s entirely possible a resident had the coronavirus but was never tested.

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Counties without identified cases have a 9 percent chance the coronavirus is there and will infect enough people to be considered an epidemic, according to modeling done by University of Texas researchers.

Their analysis assumes 90 percent of coronavirus cases nationwide are going undetected, as best estimates in non-peer reviewed data show.

“Whether coronavirus is there right now or not, it’s likely to be there in the next few weeks,” researcher Spencer Fox said.

Texas health officials believe COVID-19 will reach all, or almost all, of the state’s counties. They don’t have a timeline for when.

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Today, the challenges for finding cases are two-fold: Infected people aren’t always symptomatic. And Texas has the second-worst rate of testing per capita.

Houston County’s sole hospital, Crockett Medical Center, and some clinics have been testing residents. Crockett is one of five cities in the county and the county seat.

Katy Riemenschneider, the infection control nurse at the 15-bed hospital, agreed it was hard to believe no one had COVID-19. Riemenschneider said she might test four or five people a day.

No one came in Monday for testing.

“It is not over yet,” she said.

Gov. Greg Abbott hesitated to implement a statewide stay-at-home order because Texas counties differed so much in population, urbanization and size.

But, as elsewhere across the state, residents’ lives were upended. On April 2, the Houston County Judge reiterated the governor’s instructions to limit travel to essential services.

A folk festival, two community Easter egg hunts and and circus were among recent canceled events, the Houston County Courier reported. Even the newspaper office closed to the public.

Circle T Feed started selling out of vegetables and chickens, owner Rodney Taylor said. The chickens they got Sunday morning sold by dinner.

Davy Crockett Drug, the local pharmacy that has been there for decades, shut the inside of its store, requiring customers to get their orders delivered or pick them up curbside.

In some ways, pharmacy owner James Martin noted, the ranching community had been doing social distancing already. They had more cows than people, said Martin, who moved there with his family from Spring.

“I mean who knows?” he said. “We may have it.”

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Dickey, the emergency management coordinator, got swabbed himself and tested negative. He said residents continue to ask: Are you sure we have no cases here?

Lovell, the county judge, who grew up in a ranching family there, said he cringes every time Dickey calls. He wonders if this will be the call when he reports they have a case.

“At one point I was thinking, ‘OK, c’mon, let’s just get one and get it over with,’” Lovell said. “Now I’m back to thinking, let’s just somehow miss this altogether.”

To never get a case seems impossible.

But is it?

“You may have jinxed us,” Lovell told a Houston Chronicle reporter Monday morning. “As soon as we hang up, I may get the call.”

By 5 p.m. Monday, as he left his office for the ranch, the county was still coronavirus-free.

Data editor Matt Dempsey contributed to this report.

Emily.Foxhall@chron.com

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