The City of Brownsville sent out a news release Tuesday regarding the first COVID-19 positive case of a city employee.
The employee, who works at City Plaza, was tested April 3 and confirmed positive Tuesday. The news release stated that due to privacy laws, the city will not release specific details about the employee.
Precautionary measures taken by the city include a deep cleaning of City Plaza. The City Plaza will be closed today and detailed contact tracing is being performed with all employees/parties that may have come in contact with the infected employee.
During its regular meeting via Zoom on Tuesday, the Brownsville City Commission approved the second amended Declaration of Local State Disaster and heard COVID-19-related updates.
The second amended declaration shall take effect immediately after its issuance and be in place until April 21, unless otherwise stated, according to the declaration.
Among the changes in the order, it states:
–restaurants and bars shall permit delivery, pickup and takeout as long as no more than 10 people congregate in the take-out area;
–plasma centers shall not have more than 10 adults per room and must comply with social distancing requirements;
–facial coverings are now recommended for individuals over the age of 5 when in a public setting and will be mandatory starting April 13; and
–school campuses shall be closed to students for the remainder of the 2019-2020 academic year, according to a Facebook post Tuesday evening by Mayor Trey Mendez. “Nothing herein shall be construed to prevent a school from distributing meals, or conducting remote classes, online classes, or summer school. ‘Schools’ shall be defined as all K-12 campuses, trade schools, vocational schools, colleges or universities,” the post stated.
Patrick Gonzales, associate vice president for Marketing and Communications and UTRGV’s spokesman, said due to the addition having passed Tuesday, he needs to speak with the UTRGV Governmental and Community Relations, but from the university’s perspective, as a state entity, the university is exempt from city and county orders because essential services are provided. He said campus is still available to students.
“Obviously we have taken even further steps to send as many employees, as possible, home,” Gonzales said.
He said libraries are closed, the number of available computer labs were minimized and some services offered to students are now being offered online.
Classes will continue remotely until the end of the spring semester and an announcement for summer courses is coming.
The commission also held a work session on COVID-19 financial spending updates.
In expenditure summary, the current total is $973,675, with a $871,628 impact on the Fiscal Year 2020 budget and an emergency procurement of $102,047.
The breakdown of the $871,628 budget impact include:
–$787,816, personnel;
–$53,818, supplies;
–$1,253, lease costs;
–$10,272, contract costs;
–$3,795, other miscellaneous costs; and
–$14,674, use of equipment.
For the emergency procurement, the breakdown includes personal protective equipment masks, in which $59,500 were procured and $59,500 spent, and drive-thru collections and testing site in which $12,517 went to operating costs and $30,030 on testing kits.
