El Paso leaders say no sign of Delta variant, but 277 Covid cases among vaccinated
EL PASO, Texas -- El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser and County Judge Ricardo Samaniego held a joint news conference Monday afternoon from City Hall to provide an update on the Covid-19 pandemic in the community.
The officials said there have been no confirmed cases of the Delta variant as yet in El Paso, but there have been 277 people to date who have tested Covid-positive despite having been vaccinated.
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Meantime, Leeser said the city's coronavirus testing facility has now to northeast El Paso; using cares act funding, the city purchased a building across the street from the 911 Center to house the testing lab.
As ABC-7 has previously reported, El Paso lacks the capacity to test in its local lab for the Delta variant, but officials indicated Monday that random samples were being sent to federal and state labs for such testing.
"Have we been testing for it? Yes, we test the same way you would test for Covid-19 and we have been sending out random samples, just like every city has, to the state and the federal government," explained Leeser.
Over the past week, officials said there were 251 new cases of Covid-19 occurring, of which 10% required hospitalizations. Of those new infections, 76% involved un-vaccinated El Pasoans, while 31% involved people who had recently traveled and are believed to have brought the virus back with them
The city and county leaders also noted that El Paso's current vaccination rate is at 70% for at least one-dose as the community moves closer to so-called herd immunity.
You can watch the entire news conference from the city and county in the video player below.
as soon as the cdc tells them to they will find the delta variant
So 277 fully vaccinated people tested covid19 positive? That’s quite revealing.
Apparently, the vaccines don’t work. Not good.
Why are there 3 DNA sequencing labs in Lubbock and not a single one here?
Go ask our $400,000 City Manager!
How do you know there is no Delta variant? We can’t test for it.
Seems that the vaccine doesn’t work well, but they want to force you to take it anyway. This is shocking! 60% of people being admitted to the hospital with #COVID19 in England have had two doses of a coronavirus vaccine, according to the government’s chief scientific adviser.
How about the 6 coward Texas Democrats in D.C. testing positive for the virus but were supposedly fully vaccinated.
Remember, it is an experimental drug.
I’ll bet you have better protection if you had the virus, recovered and have natural antibodies. The mRNA and spike protein stuff doesn’t sound reliable.