Health officials in Dallas County on Saturday reported 373 additional cases of COVID-19 and two more coronavirus-related deaths.
The two fatalities reported Saturday included a Dallas man in his 30s who had underlying health conditions and a Dallas man in his 70s who did not have underlying health conditions, according to Dallas County Health and Human Services. Both had been critically ill at area hospitals.
Of the 373 cases reported Saturday, officials said 202 were from the month of September. Two hundred sixty-six of the cases came from the Texas Department of State Health Services' reporting system. Of those 266 cases, 171 were from previous months.
The breakdown included 74 cases from May, 50 from June, nine from July and 38 from August.
DCHHS also reported 42 probable cases of the virus on Saturday.
Dallas County Health officials said the provisional 7-day average daily new confirmed and probable cases (by date of test collection) for CDC week 38 was 296, an increase from the previous daily average of 258 for CDC week 37. The percentage of respiratory specimens testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 has also increased and remains high with 11.9% of symptomatic patients presenting to area hospitals testing positive in week 38.
"Our positivity rate has gone from 10% to 11.9% in one week and extra vigilance is warranted as more people crowd into indoor establishments making it more difficult to maintain proper spacing," Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said in a statement. "Scientists say the key to being around people outside your home is threefold: masking, six-foot distancing and frequent hand-washing."
A provisional total of 225 confirmed and probable COVID-19 cases were diagnosed in school-aged children (5 to 17 years) during CDC week 38 (week ending 9/19/2020), an increase from the previous week for this age group. The percentage of cases occurring in young adults aged 18 to 22 years has increased to 14% for the month of September.
The county has now accumulated 80,978 cases of the virus since testing began in March. With 72,396 estimated recoveries being reported by the state through Saturday, there are an estimated 7,564 active cases in Dallas County. There have been 1,018 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 5.3 deaths per day.
*Map locations are approximate, central locations for the city and are not meant to indicate where actual infected people live.
