Dallas County reports 2,427 coronavirus cases, 17 deaths; Tarrant County adds 3,410 cases

Updated at 17:20: Revised to include statewide numbers.

Dallas County reported 2,427 more cases of coronavirus on Wednesday, all considered new, and recorded a high number of hospitalizations for the third consecutive day. Seventeen new deaths from COVID-19 have also been reported.

The latest victims included 14 Dallas residents, including six men who had been hospitalized and had underlying health problems: one in her 50s, two in her 60s, two in her 70s and one in her 80s.

Also among the victims reported on Wednesday were eight women in Dallas, including five who lived in long-term care facilities. Two of the women who lived in long-term care facilities were 80 years old and three, 90 years old, and three of the five had latent health problems.

The remaining victims in Dallas were two women in their 60s and one in their 70s. All three were hospitalized and had latent health problems.

Also reported on Wednesday was the death of a Cedar Hill woman in her 60s who lived in a long-term care facility, a Garland woman in her 70s who died in an emergency department and a man from Grand Prairie in your 80 years. Each of them had underlying health problems.

Dallas county officials have warned that, based on models that project the spread of the virus, the hospital’s capacity and staff may be overwhelmed. The state also recorded a record number of hospitalizations on Wednesday, after breaking the record the day before.

“With the high spread we are seeing in the community, January and February will be our worst months for both hospitalizations and new cases of COVID,” said Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins in a written statement. “It is more important than ever to follow the doctors’ advice to wear our masks, wash our hands frequently and avoid crowds and meetings.”

Of the new cases notified Wednesday, 1,817 are confirmed and 610 are likely. New reported cases bring the county’s total confirmed cases to 183,974 and probable cases to 22,828. The death toll in the county is 1,715.

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 indicators to track the real-time impact of COVID-19 in the county. In the 24-hour period ended on Tuesday, 1,145 patients with COVID-19 were in intensive care at hospitals in the municipality. During the same period, 651 visits to the emergency room were for symptoms of the disease.

The county reported that, in the past 30 days, 5,309 school-age children and staff tested positive for COVID-19 at 677 separate K-12 schools.

More than two-thirds of all confirmed cases that have required 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.

The county’s seven-day provisional average of new confirmed and probable daily cases for the December 20-26 reporting period was 1,637. The amount is calculated until the date of collection of COVID-19, according to the municipality.

Dallas County does not provide a positivity rate for all COVID-19 tests performed in the area; County health officials said they did not have an accurate count of how many tests are performed each day. But in the county’s most recent reporting period, 27.2% of people who came to hospitals with symptoms of COVID-19 tested positive for the virus. This is an increase over the previous reporting period, when 26.5% of these patients tested positive.

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

State data

Across the state, an additional 23,630 cases and 326 deaths from COVID-19 were reported on Wednesday. Texas now reported 1,867,163 total cases and 28,545 deaths.

Of the new cases, 19,535 were confirmed and 4,095 were probable. The state notified 1,646,382 confirmed cases and 220,781 probable cases.

The state also added 279 oldest confirmed cases and 101 oldest probable cases that were recently reported by laboratories.

There are 13,628 COVID-19 patients in Texas hospitals – a record – including 4,045 in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

The statewide seven-day average positivity rate for molecular testing, based on the specimen’s collection date, was 20.2% on Wednesday. State health officials said using data based on when people were tested provides the most accurate rate of positivity.

For the antigen tests, the positivity rate for the same period was 15.1%.

Tarrant County

Tarrant County reported 3,410 cases of coronavirus and 12 new deaths on Wednesday.

The latest victims included three Arlington residents: two men, one in his 60s and one in his 90s, and a woman in her 80s. Three women from Fort Worth also died, including two women in their 80s and one in their 90s.

The remaining victims were a Mansfield man in his 80s, a man in Bedford in his 80s, a woman in North Richland Hills in his 80s, a woman in her 80s who lived in unincorporated Tarrant County, a woman Hurst in his 90s and an Euless man in his 90s.

County officials said a previously recorded death of COVID-19 in Colleyville was identified as an Arlington resident. A recorded Hurst death was later discovered to be a resident outside the county.

The new reported cases bring the county total to 165,288, including 144,103 confirmed cases, 21,185 probable cases and 118,933 recoveries. The death toll is 1,561.

According to Wednesday’s figures on the county panel, 1,489 people are hospitalized with the virus.

Collin County

The state added 1,036 cases of coronavirus and six new deaths from COVID-19 to Collin County total on Wednesday. The county has already registered 53,731 cases and 388 dead.

No details on the latest victims were available.

Of the new cases, 771 were confirmed and 265 were likely. Collin County recorded 47,851 confirmed cases and 5,880 probable cases. According to state data, the municipality has 5,387 active cases and recorded 42,464 recoveries.

The county coronavirus panel provides only the total number of hospitalizations, now at 546.

Denton County

Denton County reported 647 cases of coronavirus – 621 of which are active – and six new deaths on Wednesday.

The latest deaths include three Lewisville residents: a man in his 60s, a man in his 70s and a woman in her 80s. The other victims were a woman in her 70s who lived in unincorporated Denton County, as well as a woman in Dallas and a Flower Mound woman, both over 80.

The new reported cases bring the county total to 41,409, including 13,046 active and 28,139 in recovery. They also increase the total molecular cases to 33,870 and the antigen cases to 7,539.

The death toll in the county is 224.

There are 216 COVID-19 patients hospitalized, reports the county.

Other counties

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

The last numbers are:

• Rockwall County: 7,159 cases (6,026 confirmed and 1,133 probable), 58 deaths.
• Kaufman County: 10,121 cases (8,868 confirmed and 1,253 likely), 131 deaths.
• Ellis County: 14,355 cases (12,669 confirmed and 1,686 likely), 179 deaths.
• Johnson County: 12,165 cases (10,828 confirmed and 1,337 likely), 170 deaths.

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