Moore County seeing spike in COVID-19 cases due to rapid testing

AMARILLO, Texas (KFDA) - Moore County is experiencing a more rapid increase of COVID-19 cases than you’d expect for a county of its size.

“It seems like compared to the other counties in Texas, we have one of the highest infection rates per thousand people,” said Steven Agle, general surgeon at Moore County Hospital.

Moore County and Dumas officials say the spike in cases is due to the rapid testing being performed.

The antibody quick test can get results in fifteen minutes.

“The rapid tests we have here, we purchased, or looked into, because the PCR, or the regular test, we didn’t have many of those like most places in the very beginning, so we looked into other ways to test our community,” said Agle.

The Moore County Judge says the county is the only one in Texas to use this type of test and report the numbers.

“Whenever we first got these tests, we brought them here to Moore County, and then we tested them against our own known PCR positive and negative patients, and we had 100 percent accuracy,” said Agle.

Although experiencing an increase, Mayor of Dumas Bob Brinkmann says Moore County is not considered a hot spot to the state.

The City of Dumas is already adhering by Governors Abbott’s order when its comes to limiting interactions and even have a curfew in place.

Mayor Brinkmann says there is not much more the city can do, and it’s up to the community.

“When the government becomes too heavy handed and tries to force people to do things, then we start taking away those liberties. We take away that pursuit of happiness, and to me, those are the most important things we have and supersede everything,” said Mayor Brinkmann.

Mayor Brinkmann also says there are businesses going above and beyond during this time, such as the JBS meat processing plant.

“I can tell you after visiting with their supervisor multiple times, contrary to some beliefs, they are going above and beyond to protect their employees,” said Brinkmann.

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