Bosque County is now averaging a new case of coronavirus every day for the past week.
Bosque County has 18 residents now with Covid-19 according to State Department of Health Services Tuesday. Several of those new cases came from Goodall-Witcher, including five people from outside the county.
“I think we will likely hit 20 by the end of the week,” Goodall-Witcher CEO Adam Willman said Monday.
“We hit our testing high with 162 test last week and still have 132 pending. We have shot up to 14 new cases. We have seen the same increase that the rest of the state has.”
Governor Gregg Abbott added restrictions of masks in public last week, but numbers are still increasing due to tests results taking more than a week to get back.
It has forced Willman to look closer to home.
“We’re going to be getting new equipment that will allow us to test for coronavirus at the hospital,” said Willman.
“We’re essentially cutting out the middleman.”
The new equipment allows what is called ‘rapid testing’ and give the hospital the capability to complete four every hour.
Goodall-Witcher currently uses a third party to send test results, but one of the labs the hospital was using stopped taking tests and hospitals statewide, including Goodall-Witcher, are seeing eight day on turnaround times.
Willman said the new testing machine should be up and running in eight to 12 weeks.
“We’ve seen coronavirus numbers really go up this last week,” said County Judge Don Pool. “They may go up even more after the July 4 Holiday.”
“We hit our testing high with 162 test last week and still have 132 pending.”
– Adam Willman, Goodall-Witcher CEO