In Red River County, a community of about 12,000 in far northeast Texas, the first confirmed COVID-19 case didn’t come until mid-April, despite the ballooning number of cases in surrounding counties and across the state. But the rural county, which has just one full-time doctor, no hospital, and no local health department, has been slow to ramp up testing and relies on a spotty patchwork of messaging and data from state officials. The official COVID-19 count hasn’t budged, and yet County Judge L.D. Williamson is sure there’s a higher number of cases here than reported. “I think there is everywhere,” he says.
Most businesses in Red River and other Texas counties can partially reopen on Friday, just hours after the state recorded the highest single-day death count during the pandemic. Malls, restaurants, libraries, and movie theaters will be allowed to open at 25 percent capacity under Governor Greg Abbott’s new plan announced early this week, a number that will soon increase if the state doesn’t detect an uptick in the virus. Abbott’s plan also includes a special provision allowing rural counties with five or fewer active coronavirus cases to reopen these spaces at 50 percent capacity. The provision applies to more than 100 counties scattered across the state.
A grand reopening across rural Texas could be a risky proposition for those counties, which generally have scant access to medical care and even more limited testing than the state as a whole. Abbott’s standard for reopening rural Texas on an accelerated schedule is based on state health department data that is likely incomplete. Some local officials, like Williamson, suspect the true number of infections is higher than reported—an undercount that could be the difference between 25 and 50 percent reopening under Abbott’s plan. If an outbreak occurs, residents of these rural communities frequently must travel long distances to reach a doctor’s office or hospital.
