





































 Volume 2 No. S3: Second Quarter Editorial 
 https://doi.org/10.47488/dhrp.v2iS3.68 

 

DHR Proceedings ǀ http://dhrproceedings.org  10 2022, Vol. 2 No. S3 10-15 

 

EDITORIAL 

The Rising Incidence of SARS-CoV-2 

Infection in the Greater Rio Grande Valley: 

Is the COVID-19 Pandemic Over? 
Sohail Rao, MD, MA, DPhil,1 and Manish Singh, MD, FACS, FASMBS2 

1Executive Vice President for Research & Leadership Development, DHR Health, 5501 S. McColl Road, Edinburg, Texas 78539, 

and Founding President & Chief Executive Officer, DHR Health Institute for Research & Development, 5323 S. McColl Road, 

Edinburg, Texas 78539.     ORCID:  https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5027-9992  

 
2DHR Health Bariatric and Metabolic Institute and Chief Executive Officer, DHR Health, 5501 S. McColl Road, Edinburg, Texas 

78539 and DHR Health Bariatric & Metabolic Institute, 5500 Raphael Drive, Edinburg, TX 79539    ORCID:  

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4146-3282 

 

Correspondence should be addressed to: Sohail Rao, MD, MA, DPhil., DHR Health Institute for Research & Development, 5323 

S. McColl Road, Edinburg, Texas 78539.  

E-mail: s.rao@dhr-rgv.com.  

 

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; BA.4; BA.5; Omicron; CDC: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; FDA: U.S. Food 

and Drug Administration; WHO: World Health Organization 

 

 
The first case of SARS-CoV-2 infection was 

reported in 2019 by the World Health Organization for 

a patient in Wuhan, China (1). In the United States, the 

first case was reported in January 2020 of a patient 

who had travelled from Wuhan China to Snohomish 

County, Washington (2). In the Hidalgo County, Rio 

Grande Valley, Texas the first confirmed patient with 

COVID-19 was treated on March 21, 2020. Globally 

since the identification of the first case in Wuhan 

China and as of July 28, 2022, over 574 million 

(approximately 7.2% of the world population) people 

have been diagnosed with COVID-19 and over 6.3 

million people have died because of SARS-CoV-2 

infection (Table 1). During the same period, over 91 

million (approximately 27% of the population) people 

in United States were diagnosed as COVOD-19 

positive and over one (1) million people have died 

(Table 1). In Texas with a population of over 29 

million people, over 7.5 million (approximately 26% 

of the population) residents acquired SARS-CoV-2 

infection and over 300,000 have died due to COVID-

19 (Table 1). 

The Greater Rio Grande Valley (G-RGV) in 

South Texas is comprised of eight counties (Hidalgo, 

Cameron, Webb, Starr, Willacy, Zapata, Jim Hogg, 

and Brooks) and according to the 2020 United States 

Census, it has a total population of over 1.6 million 

people (3). It is one of the most rapidly growing 

regions in the United States and enjoys the uniqueness 

of having over 90% of the population who are of 

Hispanic ethnicity (3). Since the identification of the 

first case of SARS-CoV-2 infection in March 2020 

(Table 2), over 488,000 (approximately 29% of the 

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5027-9992
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4146-3282
mailto:s.rao@dhr-rgv.com


Rao, et al   Rising Incidence of SARS-CoV-2 Infection 
 https://doi.org/10.47488/dhrp.v2iS3.68 

 

DHR Proceedings ǀ http://dhrproceedings.org  11 2022, Vol. 2 No. S3 10-15 

population) people in the G-RGV have been diagnosed 

positive with COVID-19 and over 7,600 people have 

died as a consequence of this infection (Table 2; 4).  

The advent of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines in 

December 2020 positively impacted the outcome of 

SARS-CoV-2 infection both globally as well as in the 

United States (5, 6). As of July 27, 2022, over 229 

million (approximately 67.2% of the population) 

people in the United States have been fully vaccinated, 

whereas during the same period over 50 million 

(approximately 91.8% of the population) people over 

the age of 65 years have been fully vaccinated (Figure 

1). As of July 28, 2022, in Texas, over 17.8 million 

people have been fully vaccinated and over 7 million 

people have received at least one booster. 

Unfortunately, in the United States, only 

approximately 48% (over 107 million) people who 

qualify have received the first booster and only over 

19 million (approximately 30.9%) people >50 years 

and over 13 million (approximately 37.8%) people 

>65 years who qualify have received the second 

booster (7). These observations are alarming 

considering the results of a recent study that was 

published in the journal Science which suggested that 

COVID-19 vaccine boosters provided adequate 

protection against Omicron sub-lineages (8). 

 

This gradual decline in compliance with 

CDC recommendations for receiving primary and 

booster vaccinations and the concomitant 

lackadaisical approach to maintaining appropriate 

safety precautions are converging factors that are 

leading to an observed increase in infection from 

Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 sub-lineages. As depicted in 

Table 1 and 2, in the last 28 days, there is a marked 

increase in both the frequency of infection as well 

death from COVID-19. In the last 28 days, in United 

States, over 27 million people have been infected with 

SARS-CoV-2 virus and during the same period over 

55,000 people have died (Table 1). In Texas during the 

same period, over 300,000 people have been 

diagnosed as COVID-19 positive and 385 people have 

died (Table 1). Additionally, in the last 28 days in the 

G-RGV, over 22,000 people have been diagnosed with 

SARS-CoV-2 infection and 34 people have died 

because of COVID-19 (Table 2). It is noteworthy that 

positive home tests are not reported to the central 

registry thus it is highly likely that these numbers are 

not reflective of the actual incidence of SARS-CoV-2 

infection in the community. 

From the evidence presented above, we 

conclude that the COVID-19 is still a pandemic and 

has the potential to cause more fatality if adequate 

measures are not taken promptly. We recommend 

that people seriously consider getting vaccinated and 

observe safety precautions to abate the incidence of 

SARS-CoV-2 infection, reduce the frequency of 

mutations, and minimize the attendant lethality. 

Funding:   

The project was funded by a Seed Grant from 

the DHR Health Institute for Research & 

Development and the DHR Health 

Conflict of Interest:  

The authors have reported no conflict of interest 



Rao, et al   Rising Incidence of SARS-CoV-2 Infection 
 https://doi.org/10.47488/dhrp.v2iS3.68 

 

DHR Proceedings ǀ http://dhrproceedings.org  12 2022, Vol. 2 No. S3 10-15 

References

1. COVID-19 – China. World Health 

Organization. January 5, 2020. 

https://www.who.int/emergencies/disease-

outbreak-news/item/2020-DON229 

2. Holshue ML, DeBolt C, Lindquist S, Lofy 

KH, Wiesman J, Bruce H, Spitters C, Ericson 

K, Wilkerson S, Tural A, Diaz G, Cohn A, 

Fox L, Patel A, Gerber SI, Kim L, Tong S, Lu 

X, Lindstrom S, Pallansch MA, Weldon WC, 

Biggs HM, Uyeki TM, Pillai SK; 

Washington State 2019-nCoV Case 

Investigation Team. First Case of 2019 Novel 

Coronavirus in the United States. N Engl J 

Med. 2020 Mar 5;382(10):929-936. doi: 

10.1056/NEJMoa2001191. Epub 2020 Jan 

31. PMID: 32004427; PMCID: 

PMC7092802. 

3. Our Changing Population – Texas. USA 

Facts. 

https://usafacts.org/data/topics/people-

society/population-and-demographics/our-

changing-

population/state/texas?utm_source=google&

utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=&msclk

id=17d027689f6f128bad6d458fa7f6ef24  

4. Johns Hopkins University & Medicine. 

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https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html  

5. Thanh Le T, Andreadakis Z, Kumar A, et. al. 

The COVID-19 Vaccine Landscape. May 

2020.  Nature Reviews. Drug Discovery. 19 

(5): 305-306. doi: 

https://doi.org/10.1038/d41573-020-00073-5  

6. Le TT, Cramer JP, Chen R, Mayhew S 

(October 2020). "Evolution of the COVID-19 

vaccine development landscape". Nature 

Reviews. Drug Discovery. 19 (10): 667–668. 

doi:10.1038/d41573-020-00151-8. PMID 

32887942. S2CID 221503034 

7. COVID-19 Vaccination Data – United 

States. CDC. https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-

data-tracker/#vaccinations_vacc-people-

additional-dose-totalpop (Data accessed as of 

July 27, 2022 @ 06;00 hrs EST). 

8. Bowen JE, Addetia A, Dang HV, et.al. 

Omicron spike function and neutralizing 

activity elicited by a comprehensive panel of 

vaccines. Science. 2022 Jul 19:eabq0203. 

doi: 10.1126/science.abq0203. Epub ahead of 

print. PMID: 35857529. 

 

 

 

 

 



Rao, et al    Rising Incidence of SARS-CoV-2 Infection 
  https://doi.org/10.47488/dhrp.v2iS3.68 

 

DHR Proceedings ǀ http://dhrproceedings.org  13 2022, Vol. 2 No. S3 10-15 

TABLE 1: NUMBER OF COVID-19 POSITIVE CASES AND DEATHS AS OF THE START OF THE 

PANDEMIC AND IN THE LAST 28 DAYS* 

*as of July 28, 2022 @ 16:00 hours 

  



Rao, et al    Rising Incidence of SARS-CoV-2 Infection 
  https://doi.org/10.47488/dhrp.v2iS3.68 

 

DHR Proceedings ǀ http://dhrproceedings.org  14 2022, Vol. 2 No. S3 10-15 

TABLE 2: NUMBER OF COVID-19 POSITIVE CASES AND DEATHS IN THE GREATER RIO 

GRANDE VALLEY, SOUTH TEXAS AS OF THE START OF THE PANDEMIC AND IN THE LAST 28 

DAYS* 

 

*as of July 28, 2022 @ 16:00 hours 

 

 

  



Rao, et al    Rising Incidence of SARS-CoV-2 Infection 
  https://doi.org/10.47488/dhrp.v2iS3.68 

 

DHR Proceedings ǀ http://dhrproceedings.org  15 2022, Vol. 2 No. S3 10-15 

FIGURE 1: COVID-19 VACCINATION IN THE UNITED STATES* 

(Adopted from: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations_vacc-people-additional-dose-

totalpop)  

 

*as of July 27, 2022 @ 06:00 hours EST 

**Fully Vaccinated: Having received two doses of primary vaccination of mRNA vaccine 

 

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations_vacc-people-additional-dose-totalpop
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations_vacc-people-additional-dose-totalpop

