San Antonio urgent care clinics reaching capacity due to uptick in COVID-19 cases

Texas MedClinic seeing more COVID-19 patients and more COVID-19 testing

SAN ANTONIO – It’s not only major hospitals that are seeing more COVID-19 patients in San Antonio. Some local urgent care clinics are also reaching capacity.

“We are up about 30% in terms of patient visits from the last week of June, first week of July,” said Dr. David Gude, Texas MedClinic chief operating officer and practicing physician.

Gude said they are seeing more COVID-19 patients, more COVID-19 testing and even an increase in vaccinations.

“We’re not to as high in terms of the numbers as we were I would say perhaps last fall, but we’re getting there,” Gude said.

The wait times on their website shows just how busy they are.

“We’ve never let go of social distancing. So we either get people into an exam room or if we’re full, we may ask them to wait in the car or we may ask them to come back in an hour so,” Gude said.

Gude said staff members are also feeling the pressures.

One of their physicians recently shared how he was feeling.

“He feels like he’s going through the stages of grief right now, now that he can’t believe that we’re back at the point that we were at. We were just at this point a few months ago and certainly last year,” Gude said.

Juan Gutierrez, the chair of mathematics at UTSA, created one of the COVID-19 models for the city of San Antonio and Bexar County.

“We predicted 34 million cases,” said Gutierrez. “That’s exactly where we are in this moment.”

Gutierrez said his team has a projection for the next few months.

“For the City of San Antonio, our research group projected between 50,000 and 200,000 cases,” Gutierrez said.

Gutierrez said it will depend on the response from the community.

“We know that vaccinating people and wearing masks will certainly slow down the disease,” Gutierrez said.

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Tiffany Huertas is a reporter for KSAT 12 known for her in-depth storytelling and her involvement with the community.

Luis Cienfuegos is a photographer at KSAT 12.