For the last few weeks, L.D. Williamson has fielded calls from worried neighbors. COVID-19 has spread quickly through Red River County in far Northeast Texas, and residents want to know who has it. Williamson, the county judge tasked with managing the coronavirus response, tells them the same thing: he doesn’t know any more than they do. When the first positive case showed up in Red River in mid-April, Williamson only found out who had tested positive thanks to a Facebook post from the patient’s wife. That was lucky, because the Department of State Health Services (DSHS) wouldn’t tell him. Now Williamson says state officials still won’t reveal who has the virus out of privacy concerns, even as cases balloon in the rural community. As far as he knows, no one is making sure those infected are staying home, or contacting others they’ve been around.
“We can’t do it unless we know who they are, and [DSHS] won’t tell us who they are,” Williamson says. “They are so understaffed and have so many counties to watch over that they’re not able to do it. … So we’re kind of stuck.”
When Governor Greg Abbott announced his plan to reopen Texas businesses this spring, he superseded local control to address the pandemic. But managing the outbreak still falls primarily to local officials under Texas’ decentralized public health system. County judges, as the top elected officials, take on much of the emergency management role. In areas without local health departments, epidemiological investigations are done by DSHS regional offices, which for Northeast Texas is in Tyler, 100 miles south of Red River.
