WACO, TX — A couple of weeks ago, the Bell County Public Health District said COVID-19 had become so widespread you have to assume everyone you see has it.
Now, McLennan officials have begun making similar statements.
It comes as not just the numbers, but the age group spreading the virus most, has changed.
This has prompted a need for help from the state.
McLennan County did so well for so long early on battling coronavirus.
It may have gave some of us a false sense of security, because now McLennan has zoomed ahead of other counties with bigger populations in its number of COVID-19 cases.
You might think the comparison is a little outrageous, but some say, it's almost raining coronavirus in McLennan County.
Monday's figures showed McLennan added almost two hundred new COVID cases, with the total topping that of Bell County for the first time.
Most cases come from the 20 to 29 age group.
So we asked three people in their 20's how they're helping stop the virus spread.
Megan Condon, Carter Braswell, and Javier DeAlvaGarza all social distance in big groups, order more takeout and think before they leave home.
"Should I go out today? Should I not? What am I comfortable with and just using your own discretion and conscience on that," said Megan Condon of Waco.
The explosion in cases prompted Waco-McLennan Public Health District to ask Austin for help with contact tracing.
"They do reach out to people they have a goal to reach out to everyone in 24 to 48 hours. They probably won't be doing the every day contacts, but they will be doing every other day," said Kelly Craine of the Waco-McLennan County Public Health District.
Giving local epidemiologists a chance to better map the spread of COVID-19 and work with businesses, and even age groups.
"I think right now with the cases in our age group going up, yeah, that probably is on us now, to educate ourselves more than anybody else so we can take those steps," said Carter Braswell of Waco.
These steps are to reduce cases before hospitals get flooded, and we start losing the battle.
"No war was won without team effort, D-Day wasn't conquered without team effort. If we're fighting a war against an enemy we can't see, without team effort we're gonna suffer a lot of losses," said Javier DeAlvaGarza of Waco.
What’s the solution? It's simple really...limiting our contacts and proper hygiene.
Like DeAlvaGarza said, you don’t win wars without an effort.
