Vaccinate Bandera shifting focus to outreach, education

Officials with Vaccinate Bandera have and will continue to ramp up their focus on outreach and education, representatives from the grant-funded organization recently told the Bulletin.

Vaccinate Bandera said they have grant dollars which are required to be spent on outreach and education, some of which includes a year-long focus on outreach and education of the Hispanic community and families with children ages five and up.

Another aspect of those efforts are two billboards on Hwy 16 S which can be seen in Bandera County as you drive toward Bandera.

The first is located next to the Chevron station and regards the amount of deaths in Bandera County attributed to Bandera County by the Texas Department of State Heath Services (DSHS).

The second is next to Bandera Cowboy Capital RV Park. In Spanish, the billboard is a personal testimony directing people to Vaccinate Bandera’s services.

Vaccinate Bandera says they will be hosting less clinics in cooperation with DSHS, but they will still be present at community events, such as last week’s Family Health Fair at the Silver Sage. That event offered diapers, feminine hygiene products, cleaning products, masks, sanitizer, breastfeeding info, blood pressure/sugar checks, COVID-19 vaccines and more.

They will also be present at the Back to School Bash in Lakehills later this month on July 30.

For more information, visit VaccinateBandera.org.

In other COVID-19 news, new weekly cases in the county continue to trickle up, according to Bandera County Emergency Management.

From July 8 to 14, Bandera County saw 27 new confirmed cases of COVID-19, according to BCEM, who did not provide a report for the previous week. There were 20 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 reported in the county from June 24-30.

To date, there have been 2,730 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 1,136 cases, according to DSHS.