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Dallas County reported 703 confirmed coronavirus cases Sunday, all of which are considered new. 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 Sunday, Dallas County health officials said 501 came through the state’s reporting system, all of them from October. The remaining 202 cases were reported directly to the county health department.
The latest fatality was a Dallas man in his 70s with underlying health problems who had died in a hospital.The newly reported cases bring the county’s total confirmed cases to 93,548. The county’s confirmed death toll stands at 1,099.
Dallas County also reported 100 probable cases Sunday, bringing the total number of probable cases to 5,128. The county also has reported 14 probable COVID-19 deaths.
Probable cases and deaths include people who had a positive antigen test (sometimes called rapid tests), though a spokeswoman recently said the county has included a few antibody and “households” results.
Although other North Texas counties provide estimates for how many people have recovered from the virus, Dallas County officials do not report recoveries, saying it is 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. The county said it would next provide hospitalization data Tuesday.
The county reported that between Oct. 11 and 17, a total of 441 probable and confirmed cases of school-age children tested positive for COVID-19, an increase from the previous reporting period.
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 one-third of all hospitalized patients, according to the county.
The county’s provisional seven-day average of daily new confirmed and probable cases for the latest reporting period, Oct. 11 to 17, was 525, an increase from the previous reporting period. 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 12.6% such patients tested positive.
Of the county’s total confirmed COVID-19 deaths, about 24% are associated with long-term-care facilities.
Statewide data
Across the state, 3,793 more cases and 48 COVID-19 deaths were reported Sunday. Texas has now reported 862,375 confirmed cases and 17,504 fatalities.
There are 5,206 COVID-19 patients in Texas hospitals, including 1,406 in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
The newly reported cases come as several other states in the U.S. saw record-high levels of infections this weekend. The U.S. broke its record Friday for most cases reported in a single day with 83,757 infections. That surpassed the 77,362 from July 16.
In El Paso, which is seeing record numbers of hospitalized COVID-19 patients, officials pleaded with residents to stay home for two weeks to slow the spread of the virus.
Gov. Greg Abbott announced Sunday that the Texas Division of Emergency Management was setting up an alternate care site at the El Paso Convention and Performing Arts Center to provide additional hospital beds, equipment and staff to aid in the response to the coronavirus surge in the region.
State officials also have deployed auxiliary medical units on site at hospitals to provide extra capacity in El Paso.
The seven-day average positivity rate for Texas, 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 probably will be phased out but is still being provided for transparency and continuity purposes.
Tarrant County
Tarrant County reported 642 coronavirus cases and two new deaths Sunday.
Details about the latest victims weren’t immediately available.
The newly reported cases bring the county’s total to 63,792, including 57,833 confirmed cases, 5,959 probable cases and 51,073 recoveries. The death toll stands at 719.
According to Sunday’s numbers on the county dashboard, 450 people are hospitalized with the virus.
Collin County
Collin County added 79 coronavirus cases Sunday, bringing its total to 17,690. The county also reported zero new deaths, with the total standing at 175.
The county has 1,041 active cases of the virus — including 169 people who are hospitalized, according to the county dashboard — and has recorded 16,649 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 officials have said they will no longer report new coronavirus data on Sundays.
As of Saturday, the county had reported 16,054 cases, including 2,735 that were active and 13,201 that were recoveries. The death toll stood at 118.
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.