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Dallas County reported 1,458 new coronavirus cases and one COVID-19 death Sunday.
The latest fatality was a Dallas man in his 50s who had been critically ill at a hospital, officials said.
Of the new cases reported Sunday, 1,281 are confirmed and 177 are probable. The newly reported cases bring the county’s total confirmed cases to 109,022 and probable cases to 9,862. The county has recorded 1,142 confirmed COVID-19 deaths and 20 probable deaths.
The county recently announced it is counting only positive antigen tests (sometimes called rapid tests) as probable cases; a few antibody and “household” results were included previously.
Although other North Texas counties provide estimates for 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 that metric.
Health officials use hospitalizations, intensive-care unit admissions and emergency room visits as key metrics to track the real-time impact of COVID-19 in the county. The county will next report hospitalization data Tuesday.
The county’s provisional seven-day average of daily new confirmed and probable cases for the latest reporting period, Nov. 1-7, was 958. The figure is calculated by the date of the COVID-19 test collection, according to the county.
The county reported that during the same week, 843 school-age children tested positive for COVID-19, an increase of more than 200 from the previous week.
Dallas County doesn’t provide a positivity rate for all COVID-19 tests conducted in the area; county health officials have said they don’t have an accurate count of how many tests are conducted each day. But as of the county’s most recent reporting period, 15.3% of people who showed up at hospitals with COVID-19 symptoms tested positive for the virus. That’s an increase from the previous reporting period, when 15% of such patients tested positive.
More than two-thirds of all confirmed cases requiring hospitalization so far have been in people under 65, and diabetes has been an underlying condition in about a third of all hospitalized patients, according to the county.
Of the county’s total confirmed COVID-19 deaths, about 24% are associated with long-term care facilities.
Statewide data
New statewide coronavirus numbers were not available on the state dashboard as of 8 p.m. Sunday.
The latest numbers show that the state reported 8,989 more cases and 150 COVID-19 deaths Saturday afternoon. Texas has reported 1,014,160 confirmed cases and 19,470 fatalities.
Tarrant County
Tarrant County reported 1,523 coronavirus cases and one death Sunday.
Details about the victim weren’t immediately available.
The newly reported cases bring the county’s total to 82,015, including 72,809 confirmed cases, 9,206 probable cases and 61,617 recoveries. The death toll stands at 794.
According to Sunday’s numbers on the county dashboard, 726 people are hospitalized with the virus.
Collin County
Collin County turned over its case management to the state health department in June but also warned residents that it had low confidence in the numbers the state provided.
Because the statewide data were not available Sunday evening, the latest figures for the county were 21,431 total cases and 213 total deaths.
The county’s site now provides only total hospitalizations, which are at 292.
Denton County
Denton County officials have said they will no longer report new coronavirus data on Sundays.
As of Saturday, the county had reported 19,573 cases, including 3,867 that were active and 15,564 that were recoveries. The death toll stood at 142.
Other counties
The Texas Department of State Health Services has taken over reporting for these other North Texas counties. In some counties, new data may not be reported every day. The latest numbers are:
- Rockwall County: 2,356 cases, 35 deaths.
- Kaufman County: 4,042 cases, 70 deaths.
- Ellis County: 5,714 cases, 100 deaths.
- Johnson County: 4,399 cases, 76 deaths.