After reporting another death and 504 additional cases of coronavirus, the Dallas County Health Department is raising the perceived COVID-19 risk level to red Wednesday. NBC 5’s Meredith Yeomans reports.
The Dallas County Health Department is reporting another 589 cases of the 2019 novel coronavirus Thursday along with another death.
Of the 589 cases reported, 537 were confirmed and 52 were probable, according to Dallas County Health and Human Services. DCHHS said 324 of the cases came from the DSHS backlog with two coming from May, three from June, three from September and 316 from earlier this month.
“Today we’re reporting a total of 589 cases, 581 of which are new, including 52 positive antigen tests which are coded as ‘probable.’ For ease of understanding the numbers, antigen tests are coded as probable and PCR tests are coded as confirmed. Please note that we have moved back into the ‘Red’ in our color-coded chart/COVID-19 risk for extreme caution and staying safe and staying home whenever possible," Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said.
The latest death reported by the county is of a man in his 70s who was a resident of the City of Dallas. He had been critically ill in an area hospital and had underlying high-risk health conditions.
Jenkins said earlier this week that voting in person in Dallas County is safe and that the county has spent millions of dollars on disinfectants, plexiglass screens and other precautions to ensure that voters are safe. Voters can also see a live, color-coded map showing the approximate wait times at polling locations in Dallas County so that they can see which polls are least crowded and where voting can be done quickly. See the map here.
COVID-19 TRACKING AND TESTING
The county has now accumulated 88,372 confirmed cases of the virus since testing began in March. There have been 1,059 confirmed deaths attributed in the county to the virus, which, according to Dallas County Health and Human Services Director Dr. Philip Huang, is now the third leading cause of death in the county behind diseases of the heart and cancers.
County health officials said Tuesday the 7-day average for CDC Week 40 was 374, an increase from the previous daily average of 346 from Week 37. The county also said that 283 school-aged children were confirmed or probable during that same week, an increase over the previous week.
There were 376 COVID-19 patients in acute care in Dallas County for the period ending on Wednesday, Oct. 14. The number of emergency room visits for COVID-19 like symptoms in Dallas County was 472 for the 24 hour period ending on Wednesday, Oct.14, which represents around 18% of all emergency department visits in the county according to information reported to the North Central Texas Trauma Regional Advisory Council.
"It’s critical with the uptick and the increases that we’ve seen in our hospitals, including a doubling of COVID-19cases in hospitals over the last month for our region, that we all make good choices to turn the tide and get our numbers going in a good direction again. We are on the beginning of a second wave of COVID-19 cases if we do not modify behavior, and with talk of bars opening and increased capacity in other commercial buildings, there is a false sense of security. Given that our numbers are going in the wrong direction, we must turn things around now," Jenkins said.
