Dallas County added another 1,640 new cases of COVID-19 Wednesday along with three more deaths attributed to the virus.
Of the cases reported Wednesday, the county said 1,407 were confirmed cases and 233 were probable (antigen test) cases, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the county from March to 129,193 and the number of probable (antigen test) cases to 12,424. Over the last seven days, Dallas County officials have confirmed 7,573 confirmed and probable cases of the virus.
Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said earlier in the week that several reporting agencies were not reporting or conducting tests over the holiday weekend and that resulted in lower than normal or expected numbers of new cases being reported. On Wednesday, Jenkins said the numbers reported today are accurate and that all reporting agencies are back online with regular reporting.
The three latest victims involved a woman in her 40s from Lancaster, a woman in her 60s from Duncanville and a woman in her 70s from Dallas. All of the patients had been hospitalized and all but the woman in Duncanville had underlying health conditions.
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County officials said Wednesday there have been 1,221 confirmed deaths in the county attributed to the virus and another 36 probable deaths. In the summer, Dallas County Health and Human Services Director Dr. Philip Huang said COVID-19 is the third leading cause of death in the county behind diseases of the heart and cancers.
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The county said that the provisional 7-day average for new confirmed and probable cases by date of a test collection for CDC week 47 was 1,347, a slight drop from week 46 and is a rate of 51.1 daily new cases per 100,000 residents. During the same week, a provisional total of 1,157 confirmed and probable cases were diagnosed in school children between the ages of 5 and 17 -- another slight drop from the week before.
The county also reported that over the last 30 days there have been 798 COVID-19 cases reported from 95 separate long-term care facilities. Of the cases reported, 309 were among staff members.
DCHHS said this is the highest number of long-term care facilities with active outbreaks reported in Dallas County since the beginning of the pandemic. Of these cases, 27 have died, including two deaths of staff members.
Officials said 20 active clusters of cases in congregate-living facilities (homeless shelters, group homes, and halfway homes) have been reported in the past 30 days associated with 168 cases, including one facility this past week with 87 confirmed COVID-19 cases.
