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Dallas County reported 1,947 new coronavirus cases and six COVID-19 deaths Tuesday.
The latest fatalities were all Dallas residents: two men in their 50s and one woman each in their 40s, 60s, 70s and 80s. All had underlying health problems.
Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas joined other North Texas medical centers in beginning to vaccinate its staff members Tuesday.
“In the coming days, we’ll begin the vaccinations in nursing homes, and as more vaccines are approved and production ramps up, more supply will become available,” County Judge Clay Jenkins said in a written statement.
But he also reminded county residents that it will still be “some time” before inoculations are available to a much wider population.
Of the new cases reported Tuesday, 1,549 are confirmed and 398 are probable. The newly reported cases bring the county’s total confirmed cases to 147,591 and probable cases to 16,201. The county has reported a total of 1,391 coronavirus deaths, a combined figure for probable and confirmed deaths.
The county has said 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. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention do not use that metric.
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 Monday, 800 COVID-19 patients were in acute care in hospitals in the county. During the same period, 476 ER visits were for symptoms of the disease.
The county’s provisional seven-day average of daily new confirmed and probable cases for the Nov. 29-Dec. 5 reporting period was 1,560, or 56.6 daily new cases per 100,000 residents — the highest rate the county has seen since the start of the pandemic. 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; 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, 21.6% of people who showed up at hospitals with COVID-19 symptoms tested positive for the virus. That’s nearly the same as the previous reporting period, when 21.7% such patients tested positive.
Statewide data
Across the state, 17,323 more cases and 205 COVID-19 deaths were reported Tuesday. Texas has now reported 1,352,489 total cases and 24,142 fatalities.
Of the new cases, 14,569 were confirmed and 2,754 were probable. The state has reported 1,352,489 confirmed cases and 148,049 probable cases.
The state also added 824 older confirmed cases and 250 older probable cases that were recently reported by labs.
There are 9,472 COVID-19 patients in Texas hospitals, including 2,787 in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. On Tuesday, 17.92% of patients in the hospital region covering the Dallas-Fort Worth area were COVID-19 patients.
The seven-day average positivity rate statewide for molecular tests, based on the date of test specimen collection, was 13% as of Monday. State health officials said using data based on when people were tested provides the most accurate positivity rate.
For antigen tests, the positivity rate for the same period was 9.4%.
Tarrant County
Tarrant County reported 1,544 coronavirus cases and 12 new deaths Tuesday — breaking a four-day streak in which officials reported at least 20 fatalities. It was also the lowest single-day toll reported in eight days.
The county has now reported at least 1,000 cases on 28 of the last 34 days. On half of those days that didn’t reach 1,000, the county did not report COVID-19 numbers because of Thanksgiving weekend.
A third of the latest victims who died were Fort Worth residents: a woman in her 50s, a man in his 70s, and a man and woman in their 80s. The fatalities also include a man in his 60s and a woman in her 90s who lived in Arlington, as well as two men — one in his 50s and another in his 70s — from Euless.
The remaining victims were a Forest Hill man in his 60s, a White Settlement man in his 70s, a Sansom Park woman in her 80s and an Azle woman in her 90s.
All 12 victims had underlying health problems.
The newly reported cases bring the county’s total to 122,443, including 107,721 confirmed cases, 14,722 probable cases and 88,863 recoveries. The death toll stands at 1,026.
According to Tuesday’s numbers on the county dashboard, 919 people are hospitalized with the virus.
Collin County
The state added 654 confirmed coronavirus cases to Collin County’s total Tuesday, bringing the tally to 33,522. Two new COVID-19 fatalities also were reported, bringing the county’s death toll to 302.
No details about the latest victims were available.
According to state data, the county has 3,965 active cases of the virus and has recorded 29,557 recoveries.
The county’s coronavirus dashboard provides only total hospitalizations, now at 379 — a drop of 37 since Monday.
Denton County
Denton County reported 863 coronavirus cases — of which 732 are active — and two new deaths Tuesday.
The latest deaths include a woman in her 60s from Lewisville and a man over the age of 80 from Highland Village.
The newly reported cases bring the county’s total to 31,587, including 9,357 that are active and 22,063 that are recoveries. The death toll stands at 167.
The newly reported cases also raise the county’s total molecular cases to 26,582, while antigen cases stand at 5,005.
There are 141 COVID-19 patients hospitalized, according to the county’s data. That’s a decrease of eight from Monday. Eight of the county’s 86 ICU beds are available.
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: 4,035 confirmed cases, 42 deaths.
- Kaufman County: 6,405 confirmed cases, 100 deaths.
- Ellis County: 9,057 confirmed cases, 139 deaths.
- Johnson County: 7,542 confirmed cases, 129 deaths.