COVID-19 cases are rising again in North Texas.
Parkland Health in Dallas says the positivity rate for tests are at 15%, which is up from 2% positive a few months ago.
Dr. Joseph Chang, the chief medical officer at Parkland Health, says community spread is moderate and up from low transmission earlier in the spring.
“We’re spreading it pretty good amongst each other,” Chang said.
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He called this mini wave “omicron lite” and far from what we saw during the winter holidays at peak omicron when in 1 in 3 tests were positive.
“We contrast that with the number of hospitalizations, you’ll see our trends in hospitalizations are not nearly so dramatic,” Chang said.
Chang says on most days there are between 10-20 patients at Parkland with COVID-19 and nearly all can be sent home for treatment. At the peak of omicron in December and January, Parkland had 300 COVID patients.
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Still, the DFW Hospital Council says there are 477 patients hospitalized at area hospitals -- up about 100 patients in just the last seven days.
Public health officials do not believe this wave will turn into a surge and the recent uptick in COVID cases nationally is already starting to plateau.
Free COVID testing kits are available via covid.gov with shipments arriving USPS to your mailbox, typically within 2-3 business days.
Vinny Taneja, director of Tarrant County Public Health told county commissioners on Tuesday that community spread has increased from low to moderate as well.
“Hopefully this kind of gives us a good indicator that we may find a plateau post-Fourth of July,” Taneja said. “What happens, we don’t know. But I’m hoping we start to go down.”
