EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) – The El Paso Department of Health changed the way it calculates active cases and this led to a sharp drop in that number on Wednesday morning.
There are currently 8,152 known active cases, or 26,166 fewer than on Tuesday.
“We are just trying to simplify the system, to ensure that the community – as well as everyone on the team here – has adequate data to make recommendations in the future,” said fire chief Mario D’agostino, the head of El Salvador’s Emergency Operations. Paso.
Previously, the health department only marked a case as recovery if it was able to contact the infected person and confirm that it had no symptoms.
Otherwise, that person would still be considered an active case for 55 days.
Now, the city has shortened that deadline to 28 days.
D’agostino said that El Paso is now taking an approach similar to that of other major cities in Texas.
According to the previous calculation system, El Paso has been listed as having more than 34,000 active cases since mid-November.
Health director Angela Mora said the city has been working on this new system for a few weeks. She said that it is often difficult for the health department to contact infected people and therefore they would remain an “active” case for much longer than necessary.
As for where things are with the other numbers, El Paso reported five new deaths related to the virus and 350 new cases.
The latest deaths include two men in their 60s, two men in their 70s and a woman in their 80s.
For a complete view of El Paso’s Covid-19 data, click here.