As COVID cases rose, last weekend’s South San Antonio PPE giveaway aimed to slow the spread
- Unsplash / Mufid Majnun
A few hundred Southeast San Antonio residents lined up Saturday outside St. Margaret Mary Activity Center for free COVID-19 tests, personal protective equipment, hand sanitizer and groceries from the San Antonio Food Bank.
The giveaway preceded Bexar County setting a new record in COVID-19 hospitalizations. As of Monday, 1,520 coronavirus patients were hospitalized here, with 437 of them in intensive care and 260 on ventilators, according to city data.
“Providing these residents and their families any resources available to protect themselves from contracting COVID-19 can only help us all do what we can to slow the spread,” State Rep. Liz Campos, D-San Antonio, one of the event’s organizers, said in a public statement.
Campos pointed out that at the time of the giveaway, Bexar County had added 1,829 cases in the previous 36 hours. She organized the event in partnership with Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff and Precinct 4 Commissioner Tommy Calvert.
“Our local health experts believe there are a number of people in Bexar County currently infected who do not know they are infected and that is why getting tested is so important,” Campos added.
Nearly 200 people received COVID-19 tests at Saturday’s event and the Food Bank provided food to roughly the same number of families, the Express-News reported.
“Practicing safety precautions such as wearing a proper face mask, wearing the face mask the correct way, maintaining a safe social distance and constant hand sanitizing and washing is also pivotal in making sure fewer people become infected and our numbers decrease,” Campos said.
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