The Dallas County Health Department is reporting declines in the positivity rate and new cases of COVID-19 Friday while at the same time reporting one new death.
Of the 259 new cases reported Friday, 109 came from the Texas DSHS backlog with 23 of them from July and 41 of them from August.
The new death reported by the county Friday is that of a 78-year-old woman who was a resident of the City of Sunnyvale. She had been critically ill in an area hospital and did not have underlying health conditions.
Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said in a statement Friday that the county numbers show a decline in cases for the week ending Sept. 5 and the percent positivity rate for that week remained the same. Jenkins added that the number of students who tested positive for the virus also went down for the week ending Sept. 5.
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Jenkins cautioned, however, that there was some concern as some of the metrics showed increases and that they'll be evaluating those more closely to determine any root causes that may be helpful in controlling the spread of the virus.
The judge also noted a provisional total of 104 confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 in school-aged children (ages 5-17) during CDC Week 36, a decline from the previous week. Over the past two weeks, 31 cases of COVID-19 were reported by members of several youth hockey teams including five coaches. One 29-year-old hockey coach was reported to have had COVID-19 at the time of his death last week in another North Texas county.
The county has now accumulated 74,887 cases of the virus since testing began in March. With an estimated 65,127 recoveries being reported by the state through Thursday, there are also an estimated 8,795 active cases in Dallas County. There have been 965 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.
