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Dallas County reported 648 new confirmed coronavirus cases Saturday. One new COVID-19 death was also reported.
Labs either report coronavirus cases directly to the county health department or to the state health department, which then relays the information to individual counties. Of cases reported Saturday, Dallas County health officials said 381 came from the state’s reporting system, all of which were from October. The remaining 267 cases were reported directly to the county health department.
The latest victim was a Balch Springs woman in her 60s who had been critically ill in an area hospital and had underlying health problems.
The county’s numbers “have once again gone up,” Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said in a written statement. “We must curve the current spike before it becomes a wave that further endangers public health and the economy for the holiday season and up into the spring. We all know what to do; we just need to do it.”
The newly reported cases bring the county’s total confirmed cases to 92,845. The county’s confirmed death toll stands at 1,098.
Additionally, Dallas County reported 130 probable cases Saturday, bringing the total number of probable cases to 5,028. The county has also reported 14 probable COVID-19 deaths.
A spokeswoman recently said the county was counting only positive antigen tests (sometimes called rapid tests) as probable cases, though a few antibody and “household” results had been included previously.
While other North Texas counties provide estimates for how many people have recovered from the virus, Dallas County officials do not report recoveries, saying it’s not a measurement used by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Health officials use hospitalizations, intensive-care admissions and emergency room visits as key metrics to track the real-time impact of COVID-19 in the county. In the 24-hour period that ended Friday, 472 COVID-19 patients were in acute care in hospitals in the county. During the same period, 463 ER visits were for symptoms of the disease.
The county reported that between Oct. 11 and Oct. 17, 441 school-age children tested positive for COVID-19, an increase from the prior week.
The county’s provisional seven-day average of daily new confirmed and probable cases for the latest reporting period, Oct. 11 to Oct. 17, was 525. The figure is calculated by the date of the COVID-19 test collection, according to the county.
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, 14.2% 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 11.3% such patients tested positive.
Statewide data
Across the state, 6,125 more cases were reported Saturday, 5,751 of which are considered new. The remaining 374 were older cases recently reported by labs, the state said on its dashboard.
The state also reported 81 new deaths Saturday.
Texas has now reported 858,071 confirmed cases and 17,456 fatalities.
There are 4,995 COVID-19 patients in Texas hospitals, including 1,399 in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
The seven-day average positivity rate statewide, based on the date of test specimen collection, was 9.28% as of Friday. State health officials said using data based on when people were tested provides the most accurate positivity rate.
The state also provides a positivity rate based on when lab results were reported to the state; that rate stood at 9.28% as of Friday.
Officials previously calculated Texas’ coronavirus positivity rate by dividing the most recent seven days of new positive test results by the most recent seven days of total new test results. By that measure, the positivity rate is now 7.56%, according to its dashboard.
A spokesman for the Texas Department of State Health Services said that positivity rate data based on lab results and new cases will likely be phased out but is still being provided for transparency and continuity purposes.
Tarrant County
Tarrant County reported 775 coronavirus cases and four new deaths Saturday.
Details about the latest victims were not made available.
The newly reported cases bring the county’s total to 63,150, including 57,238 confirmed cases, 5,912 probable cases and 50,716 recoveries. The death toll stands at 717.
According to the county dashboard, 442 people are hospitalized with the virus.
Collin County
Collin County added 168 coronavirus cases Saturday, bringing its total to 17,611. The county also reported one new death, raising the toll to 175.
The county has 993 active cases of the virus — including 156 people who are hospitalized, according to the county dashboard — and has recorded 16,618 recoveries.
Collin County, which receives its data from the Department of State Health Services since turning over case management in June, has a note on its dashboard warning residents that it has low confidence in the numbers the state is providing.
Denton County
Denton County reported 125 new coronavirus cases Saturday, of which 101 are active.
No additional deaths were reported, leaving the county’s death toll at 118.
The newly reported cases bring the county’s total to 16,054, including 2,735 that are active and 13,201 that are recoveries.
The newly reported cases raised the county’s total molecular cases to 14,260, while antigen cases stand at 1,794.
There are 77 COVID-19 patients hospitalized, according to the county’s data.
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: 1,896 cases, 32 deaths.
- Kaufman County: 3,499 cases, 56 deaths.
- Ellis County: 4,875 cases, 76 deaths.
- Johnson County: 3,588 cases, 64 deaths.