The Dallas County Health Department is reporting no new confirmed COVID-19 deaths Monday along with 98 new cases of the virus, the lowest number reported since April 27. Meanwhile, the county's 7-day average continues to drop.
Dallas County Health and Human Services reported an additional 182 cases of the virus Monday, but only 98 of them were new. The remaining cases were part of the backlog reported by the Texas Department of State Health Services including 18 from March, 43 from April and 23 from May.
"This is the first time we’ve been under 100 cases on any day since April 27. While this is great news, it is the result of much hard work on your part: wearing your mask, maintaining six-foot distancing, washing your hands regularly, forgoing unnecessary trips, and staying away from anyone outside you family or any indoor activity outside your family where people cannot wear a mask one hundred percent of the time. We must continue to make these smart decisions for this trend to continue. That’s the best way for less people to get sick, more businesses to stay open and our children to get back to school sooner rather than later,” said Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins.
The additional cases dropped the county's 7-day average to 504 cases per day; the 14-day average went up to 1,041 cases per day. Both averages continue to be impacted by the state backlog, particularly the 14-day average that is still impacted by the more than 7,000 cases added Aug. 16-17.
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Both Jenkins and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said last week that counties should expect to have several more days of "discovered, backlogged cases" before the reporting normalizes. Of the backlogged cases, Jenkins said the patients did receive the results of their COVID-19 test, but that information was lost in the state's system and no tracing was done.
Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said the state and private labs have made changes to fix lags in reporting and that he has more confidence than ever that the accounting of the numbers being reported by the state are accurate.
The county has now accumulated 69,086 cases of the virus since testing began in March. With an estimated 50,405 recoveries being reported by the state through Sunday, there are also an estimated 17,824 active cases in Dallas County. There have been 857 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. Since March 20, the date of the first reported COVID-19 related death in Dallas County, the county has averaged 5.5 deaths per day.
