El Paso County judge concerned about potential for another virus spike

(Editor's note: The vaccination rate for El Paso has been adjusted to reflect current numbers.)

EL PASO, Texas -- The U.S. has seen a recent increase in Covid-19 cases in 25 states, while Texas has recently seen an increase of 18.5%. These numbers have some concerned there will be an impending surge. 

"I've always been concerned,” El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego said Sunday. “There are a lot of discussions about another big surge, another spike around the country, you're beginning to see that play out in some areas."  

The judge told ABC-7 he’s been impressed with how El Pasoans are handling things but wants to remind everyone to get vaccinated if they haven’t already, wear a mask, social distance and continue to get tested. 

"I wish I could say 'okay community we're done with this' but there are too many factors and too many variables, including the variations that are coming our way,” Samaniego said.

According to city officials, in El Paso right now there are 11 Covid variant cases; 9 are the UK strand while 2 are the California variant. 

The judge said the variant situation are something they will continue to monitor closely, but in the meantime El Pasoans need to continue getting vaccinated. 

According to the El Paso Covid-19 dashboard, 55.8% of the population has received one dose of the vaccine while 34.8% are fully vaccinated.

While the judge told ABC-7 that he’s happy with how the vaccination numbers are tracking, he’s somewhat concerned that we’re starting to see less demand. 

At a vaccination event on Friday, the judge said there were about 800 doses of the vaccine they didn’t administer because they “ran out of arms” to put them in. 

The judge attributes it to two reasons.

“That concerns me if people are being hesitant or we were told that there are a lot of individuals who have a real difficult time going between and during work days,” Samaniego said. 

To combat this, he said the county is planning a 24-hour vaccination event in the near future.