EL PASO, Texas – Two new deaths and 537 additional cases of coronavirus were reported Sunday morning in El Paso County by health officials.
This raised the pandemic total to 1,643 deaths and 110,125 cases.
This happens when El Paso is about to reach a milestone on the vaccine front. Scheduled to receive an additional 12,900 doses of vaccine this week, it is expected to become the first of Texas urban counties to achieve a 10% starting dose vaccination rate, according to data from the Texas State Department of Health Services.
The virus deaths reported on Sunday involved a man in his 70s and another man in his 100s, both of whom authorities said had underlying health problems.
The number of active infections continued to rise on Sunday, after again exceeding the 35,000 mark on Saturday. The count of active cases is now 35,270.
“El Paso appears to have accommodated, for the time being, a pattern of about 470 new Covid-19 infections per day. In the past three weeks, the number of new weekly cases has been in a narrow range of 3,300-3,500”, writes Bob Moore of El Paso Matters in his analysis of weekly trends. “The number of El Paso inhabitants dying from Covid-19 last week was the lowest level since October.”
As of Sunday morning, there were 427 El Pasoans hospitalized due to Covid-19, with 146 of these patients listed as intensive and 94 remaining on ventilators. Hospitalizations have been at their highest since Christmas, but have declined this weekend.
Health officials estimate that 72,647 inhabitants of El Paso have already recovered from the virus, although doctors indicate that some recovered people will still face ongoing health problems from being infected.
Complete virus data from the El Paso health department can be found online at EPStrong.org.