The Dallas County Health Department is reporting four more COVID-19 deaths Monday along with 1,850 cases of the virus and an increase in the rolling 7-day and 14-day averages.
The four latest victims of the pandemic include:
- A woman in her 40s who was a resident of Dallas. She 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. She 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 her 70s who was a resident of Richardson. He had been critically ill in an area hospital and had underlying high-risk health conditions.
The 1,850 new cases reported Monday raised the county's 7-day average from 1,251 cases per day to 1,431 cases per day; the 14-day average climbed from 880 cases per day to 985 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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"Once again we have a high number of cases coming in, this time from June, due to a coding error in the state's electronic laboratory reporting system," said Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins. "While at this point it is reasonable and understandable for people to be skeptical of the state's reporting system, it is not reasonable to be skeptical of the science that is proving to be effective throughout the world in controlling the spread of COVID-19, namely wearing a mask, six-foot distancing, hand-washing."
Jenkins added 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.
The county has now accumulated 65,278 cases of the virus since testing began in March. With an estimated 47,044 recoveries being reported by the state, there are also an estimated 17,405 active cases in Dallas County. There have been 829 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.
