The Dallas County Health Department is reporting 10 more COVID-19 deaths Tuesday along with 787 cases of the virus and an increase in the rolling 7-day and 14-day averages.
The 10 latest victims of the pandemic include:
- A man in his 50s who was a resident of Balch Springs. He had been critically ill in an area hospital and had underlying high-risk health conditions.
- A woman in her 60s who was a resident of Irving. She had been critically ill in an area hospital and had underlying high-risk health conditions.
- A woman in her 60s who was resident to Dallas. She had been critically ill in an area hospital and had underlying high-risk health conditions.
- A man in his 60s who was a resident of Dallas. He had been critically ill in an area hospital and had underlying high-risk health conditions.
- A woman in her 70s who was a resident of Dallas. He had been critically ill in an area hospital and had underlying high-risk health conditions.
- A man in his 70s who was a resident of Dallas. He had been critically ill in an area hospital and had underlying high-risk health conditions.
- A man in his 70s who was a resident of Dallas. He had been hospitalized and had underlying high-risk health conditions.
- A man in his 80s who was a resident of Dallas. He had been critically ill in an area hospital and had underlying high-risk health conditions.
- A man in his 80s who was a resident of Grand Prairie. He had been critically ill in an area hospital and had underlying high-risk health conditions.
- A man in his 80s who was a resident of a long-term care facility in Dallas. He had been critically ill in an area hospital and had underlying high-risk health conditions.
The 787 cases reported Tuesday included 550 from a state backlog, leaving 237 as new cases. The cases raised the county's 7-day average from 1,431 cases per day to 1,501 cases per day; the 14-day average climbed from 985 cases per day to 995 cases per day. Late last week the averages were both around 500 cases per day, but the backlog of cases being released by the state has increased those averages.
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"Today we have 237 new COVID-19 positive cases to be reported of people who were tested in August," said Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins. "The state also gave us 550 cases of people whose tests were lost from July and June."
Jenkins said it's possible some of the cases from August were from early August and were lost in the state's reporting system as well.
Jenkins said Monday that the county expects 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.
On Tuesday, Gov. Greg Abbott 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 66,065 cases of the virus since testing began in March. With an estimated 47,663 recoveries being reported by the state, there are also an estimated 17,563 active cases in Dallas County. There have been 839 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.
