That was some storm Saturday, at least at our place.
High winds and heavy rain made it look like a tropical storm had arrived in our backyard like some unwanted intruder.
While we had little damage, although it seemed fortunate that we paid a tree service to cut several large limbs the day before.
So Sunday, when we start on the next edition of the Sentinel, we realized where the storm hurt us the most.
No internet and our phone system was fried.
When we started a day late on the paper early Monday – I’m writing this late that afternoon – we had the lowest possible ebb of internet connection.
That means the frustrating little blue circle that appears when the system seems to be on life support was showing up on the most minor of commands.
Like saving anything.
My Mondays are a combination of editing copy, writing, attending commissioners court meetings and building pages on QuarkXPress.
No real phone or internet service on our main press day – and we’re hardly in the clear – all caused by a storm that slammed into us at the more or less start of hurricane season.
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I was thinking about writing an update on COVID-19 – and that was before we were beset by our digital setbacks.
Covering the Matagorda County Hospital District board of managers meeting several days back, it was noted there is a slight uptick in coronavirus cases in Matagorda County.
I checked the latest state reports right before writing this, and the county’s new confirmed cases are on the rise.
Monday night we were at 3.5 new cases per 1,000 confirmed cases.
A few weeks back, we were at less than one new case per 1,000.
We’ve had 131 new cases in the past 14 days.
We’ve had 175 deaths all together.
Our rate is higher than most neighboring counties.
Fort Bend County is higher with 4.5 new cases per 1,000 - they’ve had 3,674 new cases in the past 14 days.
Statewide, hospitalizations and new cases are increasing.
According to the Texas Tribune, the latest increase in cases can largely be attributed to two new COVID subvariants, BA.2 and BA.2.12.1, which represented 61.8% and 32.4%, respectively, of all cases in Texas during the week of May 7, according to state data.
Both are related to earlier subvariants of omicron but don’t appear to be as virulent.
