SAN ANTONIO — As restrictions loosen on bars, parks, and other recreational activities, authorities received numerous reports of people gathering in large groups.
Charlie Longoria captured a mass of people flocking to the Comal River in New Braunfels on Memorial Day weekend.
Longoria’s video has received close to 1,700 shares and 141,000 views, and comments posted were both supportive and critical of the crowd.
University of Texas at San Antonio Mathematics Professor, Dr. Juan Gutierrez has studied the spread of contagious disease for years, and recently published a study on asymptomatic carriers of the coronavirus.
Currently, he’s reporting trends of the virus to city officials after receiving data daily from San Antonio Metro Health.
“In this moment, with the information that we have, all we can tell is once we increase social contacts, we see an increase in the number of cases,” said Gutierrez.
Officials in Maverick County said that over Mother’s Day weekend, they received reports of multiple large gatherings with family and friends.
Since then, the number of positive coronavirus cases in the county has tripled.
It’s almost a situation of catch-22. Gutierrez said opening the economy is vital, but the public needs to make good decisions to help keep the vulnerable safe.
“The power is in the hands of the community,” said Gutierrez. “Being responsible and exercising freedom is not to exercise their right to hurt others. If we experience an increase in contagion in the community, as a society, as a city, we might be forced to remove those opportunities to work again from the people who truly need it.”
Gutierrez said he understands the innate human need to social interactions, including with family members.
“Families need to come together. It’s easy to understand the needs to come to a congregation with others,” said Gutierrez. “We need to tell others there is a price to pay for an action that might be detrimental to the community. So, we have to do it in a balanced manner.”
Gutierrez stressed the importance of wearing a face covering or mask, practicing good hygiene like washing your hands, and wearing disposable gloves when necessary.
“That's why we have to keep sending a consistent message and constant message toward communities. This disease is serious. It could still cause damage. We need to keep protecting ourselves and others through common sense measures, wearing masks, washing hands frequently,” said Gutierrez.
He said there’s still too much uncertainty about the virus, and it’s too early to determine if the large gatherings on Memorial Day Weekend will result in a spike in cases.
“I think that trying to anticipate the outcome of this weekend is a risky business because temperatures were high,” said Gutierrez. “So high temperatures might provide some protection against contagion. But, at this point this is speculation because this is the first time that we encountered this virus with high temperatures.”
Gutierrez said that San Antonio and Bexar County are leading the way in safe practices compared to other large metropolitan areas across the state.
“We’re doing better than other places and we're doing better because we started early,” said Gutierrez.
But, Gutierrez said that’s not a reason to let guards down and stop social distancing and practicing other safe measures.
“My most optimistic hope is that summer will bring relief, that we will see the numbers go down and that perhaps those vaccines that are so promising will indeed be fast tracked and we will obtain a preventive measure, a vaccine sometime this year or next year,” said Gutierrez.
“If I want to be realistic, I would say we will see a number of cases going through the summer. We might see some relief. What history tells us is that the fear of a second wave will happen. That is the most likely scenario in what happened over a 100 years ago is that the second wave of the Spanish Flu was at least five times deadlier than the first wave.”
“So, we have to be prepared for that,” he added.
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