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Dallas County reported 1,852 more coronavirus cases Sunday and three COVID-19 deaths.
The latest fatalities were three Dallas men — two in their 60s and one in his 70s. Each had been critically ill at a hospital and two of the three had underlying health problems, officials said.
Of the new cases reported Sunday, 1,787 are confirmed and 65 are probable. The newly reported cases bring the county’s total confirmed cases to 134,677 and probable cases to 13,495. The county has recorded 1,234 confirmed COVID-19 deaths and 39 probable deaths.
The county’s latest numbers came as the trauma service area that includes Dallas-Fort Worth reported a hospitalization rate of 14.82% — the second day in a row below a key 15% threshold set by Gov. Greg Abbott.
On Thursday D-FW rolled back its indoor business capacity after reporting more than 15% of COVID-19 hospitalizations in the area for a week. The governor’s Oct. 7 executive order states that businesses must scale down to 50% capacity if they are in a region where more than 15% of hospital beds are occupied by COVID-19 patients for seven days in a row.
According to the governor’s order, the region will remain under the restrictions until there are seven consecutive days when the percentage of COVID-19 hospitalizations is below 15%, the county said.
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. Dallas County said it would next provide its own hospitalization data Tuesday.
The county reported that since Nov. 1, there have been 5,230 COVID-19 cases in school-aged children and staff from more than 770 K-12 schools in Dallas County. Thirteen schools in Dallas County temporarily halted in-person instruction last week because of COVID-19, officials said.
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.
The county’s provisional seven-day average of daily new confirmed and probable cases for the latest reporting period, Nov. 22 through 28, was 1,069. 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, 22.3% 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 20.4% such patients tested positive.
Of the county’s total confirmed COVID-19 deaths, about 23% are associated with long-term care facilities.
Statewide data
Across the state, 8,436 more cases and 92 COVID-19 deaths were reported Sunday. Texas has now reported 1,249,323 confirmed cases and 22,594 fatalities.
There are 8,681 COVID-19 patients in Texas hospitals, including 2,365 in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
The seven-day average positivity rate statewide, based on the date of test specimen collection, was 13.4% as of Saturday. 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 14.03% as of Saturday.
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 14.88%, according to the state 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 1,535 coronavirus cases and two new deaths Sunday.
Details about the latest deaths weren’t available Sunday afternoon.
The newly reported cases bring the county’s total to 110,015, including 97,322 confirmed cases, 12,693 probable cases and 78,062 recoveries. The death toll stands at 874.
According to Sunday’s numbers on the county dashboard, 842 people are hospitalized with the virus.
Collin County
The state added 692 coronavirus cases to Collin County’s total Sunday, bringing the tally to 29,239. No new COVID-19 fatalities were reported. The county’s death toll stood at 277.
According to state data, the county has 3,675 active cases of the virus and has recorded 25,564 recoveries.
The county’s coronavirus dashboard provides only total hospitalizations, now at 320.
Denton County
Denton County officials have said they will no longer report new coronavirus data on Sundays.
As of Saturday, the county had reported 26,034 cases, including 6,882 that were active and 18,994 that were recoveries. The death toll stood at 158.
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: 3,540 cases, 39 deaths.
- Kaufman County: 5,369 cases, 87 deaths.
- Ellis County: 7,905 cases, 127 deaths.
- Johnson County: 6,364 cases, 117 deaths.