News

Hemphill County reached a new milestone this week. The hospital district reported on Wednesday that the number of positive coronavirus tests in this county had reached 100. Of those cases, over a quarter were deemed active cases at midweek, with 74 recovered, 1 still pending, and 774 negatives. No COVIDrelated deaths have been reported.

The number of new COVID-19 infections remained steady last week in rural America, but troubling levels of new infections placed an additional 68 rural counties on the White House red-zone list—an indication indicating that authorities in those counties need to do more to control the spread of the virus.

The Hemphill County Recreation Complex was a hive of activity this week as a public/private partnership of county employees and officials, and volunteers from local businesses, joined forces to give the popular duck ponds a proper grooming.

We spent a couple of hours last week catching up with County/District Clerk Lisa Johnson, who also serves as this county’s official voter registrar and is responsible for conducting countywide special and general elections, and for handling absentee voting. This year, Johnson’s task has grown to encompass the city council election. Originally scheduled for May 2, that election was postponed by gubernatorial executive order to safeguard the public during the coronavirus pandemic.

State Rep. Ken King (R-Canadian) got a good taste of the concerns he will likely hear voiced by residents of District 88 as he kicked off a his series of town hall meetings at the Hemphill County Exhibition Center last Wednesday, Sept. 28. He also voiced some of his own.

Canadian firefighters, and Hemphill County EMS and law enforcement were dispatched around 2:30 pm last Wednesday, Sept. 23, to a two-vehicle accident just north the US 60/83 intersection, south of town. The accident involved two semi-tractors—both traveling south.

It’s likely that flu viruses and the virus that causes COVID-19 will both spread this fall and winter. Healthcare systems could be overwhelmed treating both patients with flu and patients with COVID-19. This means getting a flu vaccine during 2020-21 is more important than ever.