Fire department will test nursing home residents, staff

Hays County fire departments have been tasked with carrying out Gov. Greg Abbott’s order to test all nursing home residents and staff for COVID-19.

In an update provided to the San Marcos City Council, Director of Public Safety Chase Stapp said during a special city council meeting on Thursday that the state does not have enough capacity to conduct this testing and is turning to local governments.

Local fire departments are working on a plan to get all this testing done, beginning with an 18-page survey for each facility.

“Obviously there are a lot of operational concerns that come out of this with introducing the nursing homes to new people, even public servants with PPE,” said Stapp as he explained the plan is still being developed to provide testing in the safest way possible.

The City of San Marcos is looking forward to potential additional funding from the CARES Act. As a municipality with a population less than 500,000, San Marcos could qualify for $3.5-$3.7 million of the $5.06 billion in funding available to Texas.

The funding is only available for reimbursements for purchases related to COVID-19, it cannot be used to fill shortfalls in government revenues.