After waking up Sunday morning with a mild headache and sore throat, Collin County Judge Chris Hill decided to request a COVID-19 test from his doctor on Monday "out of an abundance of caution."
Who can blame him? For weeks, he's been claiming that he no longer had faith in the state's COVID-19 numbers and requested to have the county's COVID-19 dashboard removed due to inconsistencies with the state's numbers.
Yet, it didn't mean COVID-19 was no longer spreading unchecked in Collin County. McKinney Mayor George Fuller recently announced that he was quarantining after his wife tested positive for the virus. “We've lost two friends to COVID and I've got two kids that have had it, now my wife,” Fuller told NBC-DFW, and then encouraged people to follow Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order which requires masks in public in most counties.
Tuesday morning, Judge Hill, who has been resistant to Gov. Abbott's mask request, announced that he has tested positive for COVID-19, but assured the public that he feels fine.
“I was surprised when the test came back positive, because I really didn't feel very bad,” he said in a Tuesday morning press release. “In fact, I feel great today, but I will continue to follow the doctor’s orders and quarantine at home according to the CDC guidelines.”
He added that his wife and children show no symptoms, but will be quarantining at home as well.
Hill didn't end his message with COVID-19 news, but with a request for a little partisan support.
"While I'm in quarantine, I'm not able to poll greet or volunteer for our exceptional Republican candidates, so I need your help!" He wrote and asked the public to show up in force. "If you've already voted, please reach out to three friends and remind them to vote, and to vote all the way down the ballot!"
Judge Hill’s reckoning with COVID-19 is now more personal. He has long been an advocate of life continuing without interruption from COVID-19. In the initial shutdown on March 24, he originally resisted shutting down nonessential businesses.
“To protect the financial well-being [of our local economy], it is critical that we keep people at work,” he said at the time and followed with an order that stated “all businesses, jobs, and workers are essential to the financial health and well-being of our local economy and therefore are essential to the financial health and well-being of Collin County citizens.”
A week later, another order from the governor forced him to rescind this policy and shut down all nonessential businesses after all.
One of the major issues on the floor for Judge Hill and the commissioners in October was whether or not Collin County’s COVID-19 dashboard should be removed from the website after several inconsistencies with the data provided by the state. It was supposed to be removed at the end of October, which Hill was in favor of.
However, last night, in light of Hill's absence and that of Commissioner Cheryl Williams, other commissioners voted 2-1 to leave the controversial dashboard up indefinitely or until every member of the court can be present to discuss it.
“I plan to work remotely while I'm in quarantine, and I've been in regular contact with the county staff via phone and email since yesterday morning, and county operations continue to run without interruption,” Hill said in the press release.
