Dallas County reports 2,246 coronavirus cases, 7 deaths

Updated at 17:20: revised to include statewide data.

Dallas County reported 2,246 cases of coronavirus and seven deaths from COVID-19 on Sunday.

Health officials also said 109 long-term care facilities in Dallas County have outbreaks of coronavirus – the highest number since the pandemic began.

Three Dallas men were among the latest fatalities: one in his 40s and two in his 60s. The remaining victims included a Grand Prairie man in his 60s, a Richardson woman in his 60s, a Garland woman in her 60s and a woman in Duncanville in her 80s.

All seven victims were hospitalized and had latent health problems.

Of the new cases registered on Sunday, 1,987 were confirmed and 259 are likely. The new reported cases bring the total confirmed cases in the county to 192,567 and the probable cases to 24,652. The death toll in the county is 1,773.

The county said it is counting only positive antigen tests (sometimes called rapid tests) as probable cases; some antibody and “household” results have been included previously.

While other counties in northern Texas provide estimates of how many people have recovered from the virus, Dallas county officials do not report recoveries, noting that the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not use this metric.

Health officials use hospitalizations, intensive care admissions and visits to emergency rooms as key metrics to track the real-time impact of COVID-19 in the county. The county will release hospitalization data next Tuesday.

More than two-thirds of all confirmed cases requiring hospitalization to date have been in people under the age of 65, and diabetes has been an underlying condition in about a third of all hospitalized patients, according to the county.

Of the total COVID-19 deaths confirmed in the county, about 22% are associated with long-term care institutions.

State data

Across the state, an additional 15,592 cases and 186 deaths from COVID-19 were reported on Sunday. Texas has already reported 1,954,406 total cases and 29,877 deaths.

Of the new cases, 12,954 were confirmed and 2,638 were likely. The state notified 1,716,824 confirmed cases and 237,582 probable cases.

The state also added 236 oldest confirmed cases and 27 oldest probable cases that were recently reported by laboratories.

There are 13,111 COVID-19 patients in Texas hospitals, including 4,071 in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

On Sunday, 27.17% of patients in the region of the hospital that covers the Dallas-Fort Worth area were COVID-19 patients, according to the state panel.

The seven-day average positivity rate across the state for molecular testing, based on the date of collection of the test specimen, was 19.15% on Saturday. State health officials said using data based on when people were tested provides the most accurate rate of positivity.

For antigen tests, the positivity rate for the same period was 12.41%.

Tarrant County

Tarrant County reported 2,950 cases of coronavirus and no new deaths on Sunday.

The new reported cases bring the county total to 176,790, including 153,472 confirmed cases, 23,318 probable cases and 125,846 recoveries. The death toll is 1,711.

According to Sunday’s figures on the county panel, 1,524 people are hospitalized with the virus.

Collin County

The state added 752 cases of coronavirus and six new deaths from COVID-19 to the total for Collin County on Sunday. The county has already registered 56,988 cases and a death toll of 422.

No details about the latest victims were available.

Of the new cases, 628 were confirmed and 124 were likely. Collin County recorded 50,312 confirmed cases and 6,676 probable cases. According to state data, the municipality has 6,429 active cases and recorded 43,883 recoveries.

The county coronavirus panel provides only the total number of hospitalizations, now at 562.

Denton County

Denton County officials said they would no longer release data on the coronavirus on Sundays.

As of Saturday, the county had reported 43,107 cases, including 13,604 active and 29,270 in recovery. The death toll was 233.

Other counties

The Texas Department of Health Services has taken over the reports for these other counties in northern Texas. In some counties, new data may not be reported every day.

The last numbers are:

• Rockwall County: 7,481 cases (6,247 confirmed and 1,234 probable), 60 deaths.
• Kaufman County: 10,538 cases (9,181 confirmed and 1,357 probable), 142 deaths.
• Ellis County: 14,984 cases (13,191 confirmed and 1,793 likely), 185 deaths.
• Johnson County: 12,912 cases (11,492 confirmed and 1,420 probable), 184 deaths.