Abilene Removes Inmates from COVID-19 Count

ABILENE, TX – Gathering accurate testing information during this pandemic is essential to determine the real impact of coronavirus. According to KTXS, the City of Abilene must change the way it is reporting active COVIS-19 cases versus positive antibody cases.

The current numbers include cases that have been confirmed through antibody tests that can prove if patients were previously infected with COVID-19. Health departments across the state will be mandated to only report positive COVID cases using the nasal swabs.

"The serology (antibody) test is a backward-looking test and so it tells you that someone has been infected in the past," said Chris Van Deusen with the Texas Department of State Health Services. “

From now on the City of Abilene will no longer count positive serology tests as positive COVID cases. This will create a significant drop in Abilene cases from 382 to 206; at least 82 of the reported positive cases came from antibody tests.

DSHS also instructed the city to remove inmates that tested positive at the Middleton and Robertson units from the Taylor County numbers as they will be attributed to Jones County, where both prisons are located.

As of right now, Abilene has not released what groups were tested positive with a swab or a blood test. But according to the director of Express ER, one group had a larger percentage of people with COVID antibodies than others.

"There is more false positives than there is the actual disease in the community, so that makes the test worthless," said Express ER Medical Director Dr. Dan Akers. “First responders, we are finding that about 30-percent of them have COVID antibodies.”